Psychogeography: Feeling One’s Way Around Bloomsbury

I had the honour and privilege of presenting at the Victorian Tactile Imagination Conference held at Birkbeck, University of London from July 19-20^th.  It is an understatement to say that never was a conference more perfect and attuned to my research and scholarship.

The conference was amazing, with so many scholars part of a new wave of sensory studies becoming more pervasive in English, philosophy, anthropology, and history departments. Time and again, I heard echoes of my own work which made me happy to know that there is such a great community of scholars out there.  Academics at all stages, from the always mind-blowing (and perpetually gracious) Dame Gillian Beer, to early-career scholars (such as myself) and graduate students, presented papers on topics ranging from sculptures to textiles, literature to artifacts. It was a very rewarding experience and I had the opportunity to make connections with many great people both in England and in the US. 

It was also a very rewarding experience for me because it was my first time overseas. For those who know what a big part Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours play in my life (academic and otherwise), to be able to attend a conference and stay in Bloomsbury was a dream come true. The only way the trip could possibly have been better is if I had time to stay a few more days and actually make it to Haworth (but that will be another trip for another time).

Walking around London, specifically around Bloomsbury in the early morning and late evening, evoked the particular type of haunting of space that really spoke to the sensory imagination mentioned time and again at the conference. Being a flaneuse in this new found space was particularly life altering (I know big claim but let me finish).

 I have lived in the same city for 20 years. I have in that time lived in various parts of the city but always geographically to the north or the east. When you live in the same space for that amount of time, your senses become dull to your environment, things become familiar, perhaps too familiar, and you don’t necessarily take the time to appreciate your surroundings with the same intensity that you did when you first moved. Bloomsbury was breath-takingly beautiful, not only because of the age of some of the structures but how green space as a lived space is seamlessly present in the fabric of everyday life. Knowing that you may be walking in the same place where an author you have studied and revered has walked a hundred years ago is pretty exhilarating.  The tactile residue of their presence (which I refer to as “tactile memory” in my work), is inspiring for someone like me who has a strong interest in academic architecture. 

At the south-west corner of Gordon Square I had a real moment, where I had to stop and wonder, how much has this changed geographically in 100 years? What remains of this space that inspired those who walked it daily? Ultimately the knowledge that I was leaving my own small trace here, my own tactile residue, by touching trees, seeing what others have seen, gave me much to contemplate. This was reinforced when my best friend and fellow academic mentioned that she had been in those exact places and encountered and interacted with those exact spaces during her research trip there a year ago. 

Layers upon layers, traces of presence and being. I know pretty heavy for a blog post, but I did say it was life altering so I had to back that claim up with metaphysics. I am taking my very brief (I can’t believe I was only in London for 5 days) trip and making the most of it now that I am back. I have many deadlines looming before the end of August and much work to be done (I start teaching fall term on September 3^rd and my summer term ends August 15^th) but I have returned to this place that I have lived for 20 years with a new set of sensory experiences. I now walk my neighbourhood noticing the Edwardian architecture. However, I also notice the lack of history. This city was only incorporated in 1834. It does not have the sense of presence and being I felt in London (saw Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster…Elizabeth the first!, a far cry from a William Lyon McKenzie or an Allan Lamport, though they were goodly mayors).

On my fridge is a picture of the south-west corner of Gordon Square. I look at it at least a dozen times a day and think of the feelings it gives me and what those feelings in turn will inspire me to accomplish.  Rather I “see” that picture and not merely look. For I now truly know what Ruskin meant when he said:

“A man who can see, understands a touch, a man who cannot, misunderstands an oration” (Modern Painters) (Works 7.466).