Monocultural Montage: Towards a Conceptual Dictionary of the Rural

What is it about?

This chapter looks at the historical geography of the Fen region in the East of England using Walter Benjamin's concepts of phantasie and natural history. The author argues that the use of critical poetic methods is undervalued in current research concerning rural landscapes and demonstrates the "oppressed histories" that emerge when putting it to work in the analysis of the drained monocultural landscape of the Fens.

Featured Image

Photo by Piers Harding on Unsplash

Photo by Piers Harding on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Walter Benjamin's concepts and methods have been used extensively to understand urban landscapes. Rarely, however, have they been used to understand rural places. This chapter argues that classical Greek thought de-poeticised the rural and proposes a methodological intervention via Benjamin.