Echo, Desire, and the Grounds of Knowledge

A Mytho-Poetic Assessment of Buttimer's Geography and the Human Spirit

Bibliographic Data

ID4476207
AuthorsSteve Pile (0000-0003-1503-2382, The Open University, corresponding author)
Year1994
Volume12
Issue4
Pages495-507
Publication date1994-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d120495
OpenAlexW2081790370
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

In Geography and the Human Spirit, Buttimer argues that the history of geographical concern is marked by cyclical time, which is distinguished by three phases: Phoenix, Faust, and Narcissus, By taking a longer look at one of these myths, Narcissus, it is possible to suggest that Buttimer bases her account on some problematic assumptions. Thus, the figure of Echo, absent from Buttimer's telling of the myth, can return to disrupt her story. This mytho-poetic assessment reveals something of the way in which 'others' are constituted in her story: I take this erasure to be symptomatic of an 'othering' humanism, which is predicated on the other, but considers itself self-grounded and thereby distances itself from others. The conclusion questions Buttimer's universalism, her concept of cyclical time, and her sense of a liberation cry of humanism, I suggest that an emancipatory geography cannot rely on undisclosed and marginalized 'others', in this case represented by the figure of Echo

Aesthetics · Art · Echo (communications protocol · Epistemology · FAUST · Humanism · Literature · Mythology · Poetry · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Universalism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · Law · Philosophy

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