The Logic of the Situation: Space, Mapping, and the Sense of Place

The experience of being lost is probably the condition under which we are most viscerally aware of space and place. The anxiety-ridden disorientation, fear, and dread that comes with not knowing where we are and not knowing how to get to where we want to be: this makes us all-too-conscious of our place, or perhaps our displacement, in space. But for many today the experience of spatial limitation carries with it a powerful sense of our spatiality and situatedness in space, with similar levels of anxiety. The places that we find ourselves located are not at all unfamiliar, especially when we are literally staying “at home,” but the situation, which must be understood more expansively than as merely a discernible point or set of coordinates in a spatial context, is changed. In this essay I examine the logic of the situation in the context of spatial representation or mapping. I argue that, if it is to serve as a truly meaningful activity and yield useful results, such mapping must pay attention to far more than the mere figuration of various geometrical points in a spatial diagram. As befits the expansive scope of literary geography, our efforts at spatial representation should incorporate the logic of the situation, emphasizing the fundamental meaningfulness of place, and thereby helping to lend a greater sense of place to ourselves in our various spatiotemporal situations and frames of reference.