Petites Histoires
Posted on Dec 06, 2007 in preambulatory | Permalink
Also from the Rodenbeck article mentioned in the previous post, the author writes of Cavafy’s accounting of the commonplaces of the city: “So likewise is it the trivial gossip recorded in petites histoires, not the solemn narratives of great historians, that can bring us to an understanding of the pathos of all historical event, no matter how grandiose.” I’m interested in the these tiny histories, in their potential to reveal hidden layers of meaning within the city. And by a couple of semantic turns, I can move from petites histoires to tiny histories to minor histories (cf. Deleuze and Guattari’s “minor literature” and Joan Ockman’s “minor architecture”) to vernacular histories and arrive at pedestrian histories.
Pedestrian histories suggest a multiplicity of stories and perspectives from which to consider a place, from which to consider Alexandria and the people who inhabit it. So too, pedestrian histories depend upon the itinerary and movements between static points of rest. They are performed anew with each subject, and maybe with each singular instance. Although, paths will often be repeated, practiced, refined. Pedestrian histories have a pacing, a slowness, a particular kind of looking. As a frame, pedestrian histories seems to be really useful in how I might approach my time in Alexandria and how I might begin to relate my experiences to such a foreign, unknown place. It’s burgeoning.
Of course, I’m indebted to de Certeau’s spatial stories here (once again) for a modicum of provocation in thinking about pedestrian histories. De Certeau, writing of spatial stories, makes a distinction between “space” and “place” and is particularly concerned with the movement between these two states which comprises stories. (Interestingly, he notes that the public transport in Athens is called “metaphor” in Greek—one takes a metaphor to move through the city.) Space… “a determination through operations which, when they are attributed to a stone, tree, or human being, specify ’spaces’ by the actions of historical subjects (a movement always seems to condition the production of a space and to associate it with a history).” Contrary to this, place is determined by objects which are “dead,” static, fixed.
While his particular space/place segmentation might be a touch esoteric at first read, it does become clearer in analysis of the map vs. tour. De Certeau cites an analysis of the descriptions New Yorkers gave of their apartments which revealed two types: “static” or “mobile.” One is a tableau, the other a movement. And the New Yorkers overwhelmingly favored the latter type of narrative: “you turn right and go into the kitchen” vs. “on the right is the kitchen.” These, then, are “two poles of experience […] the itinerary (a discursive series of operations) and the map (a place projection totalizing observations)…”
Modern scientific discourse eventually split the tour from the map. “The first medieval maps included only the rectilinear marking out of itineraries (performative indications chiefly concerning pilgrimages), along with the stops one was to make (cities which one was to pass through, spend the night in, pray at, etc.) and distances calculated in hours or in days, that is, in terms of the time it would take to cover them on foot.” These early maps suggest to me the pedestrian histories that I’m interested in. I remember this as well, walking and talking in an unfamiliar city, stories and histories spatially unfolding.