Nighttime City Mobility. Contributions from a Literary Urban Space

The proposal aims to identify the interplay between different mobile forces that shape and nourish a sense of urban place that must be discovered in order to become aware of one’s own subjective identity to reconcile the “self” with the urban dimension. It aims also to contribute to the ongoing critical debate on e-motions linked to an urban nighttime atmosphere in literature. Given the introspective potentialities of literature and the inspiring and revealing nature of the night, the main source of research is the novel Ne qui ne altrove. Una notte a Bari (Neither here nor elsewhere. One Night in Bari) (2009), written by Gianrico Carofiglio. It is set in the city of Bari (Italy). In order to present its urban literary cartography, we opt for the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a way to access the subjective world. The combination of academic reading and literary interpretation results in urban mental maps produced according to the Lynchian categories. The mobile narrative practices and techniques (shifting pace, motions within the city, sliding motion between past and present, unceasing critical movement from fictional to non-fictional content, etc.) enhance the sensory and emotional experience. The proposal advances a relational production of the sense of place, while contributing to the ongoing critical debate on meanings and feelings linked to an urban nighttime atmosphere in literary terms.