41º 51’ N / 87º 38’ W. Maxwell Street: Fragments of an Attempt at Writing Place

Abstract

How to write about a place? Where do we begin? One thing is to locate the place, specify its coordinates. So we know where we are. Put your name on the site. This article is a work of local theory or, perhaps, a topology. [Local theory / place writing] Local theory is, at the same time, a way of interacting with the place and a way to theorize it. It differs from the ways of interacting with a place that focuses on unique qualities and particularities, thus isolating one’s place from all others. This article experiences Walter Benjamin’s writing techniques in his Arcades Project as well as hybrid experiments in contemporary poetry (Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, Susan Howe, etc.). The essays are written in fragments: paragraphs that introduce and return to recurring themes, including waste, lists, materiality, senses and memory. The result is a methodological proposal to create new creative topologies.

Keywords: Topology, local theory, creative writing, place, geography, geoliterature.