Introduction
RIS ID
64790
Abstract
If you want to know how much darkness there is around you, you must sharpen your eyes, peering at the faint lights in the distance. -I talo Calvino, Invisible Cities. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Certeau once said, in all seriousness, that his investigations into the daily life of cities could be seen as a complement to Calvino's fictional explorations of invisible cities.! Certeau had a knack for marvel and his writing is often spell-binding for just this reason: he was himself entranced by the wonder of the phenomena before him-mysticism, magic, imaginary cities. But it was always with an eye to the darkness that lurked just below the surface that he looked into these things. It was truly as ifhe were measuring the expanse of light.
Publication Details
Buchanan, I. 1999, 'Introduction', Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 115-117.