O'Connor, Robert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8892-5929 (2020) “The Navel Between Cities”: Copula Hall and the representation of Borders and Liminal Space in China Mieville’s The City & The City. In: Walls and Barriers: Science Fiction in the Age of Brexit, 12 September 2020, Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The duality between the non-fiction and fiction of British author China Miéville – in terms of their qualities of propaganda – is most effectively evoked if you compare his essay “Exit Strategy” (2013) with his novel The City & The City (2009). Both texts explore the concepts of politicised borders. “Exit Strategy” is a journalistic article recounting Miéville’s thoughts of inhabiting the interstitial space which is the border checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. In The City & The City we witness this mirrored in the fantastical construction of the twin cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma and the border crossing of Copula Hall. Even though “Exit Strategy” was published after The City & The City, their intrinsic connection clearly demonstrates that Miéville’s method in both texts is to extrapolate to the extreme the situation in the West Bank, and other similar politicised borders.
Out of all of Miéville’s novels The City and the City most successfully demonstrates the political fluidity of urban landscapes and the novel’s central premise – ‘Unseeing’ – becomes an imaginative interpretation of political and psychological indoctrination. By analysing The City and the City closely, this paper demonstrates how Miéville is using fantastical fiction to explore the real-life politics and psychological effects associated with borders and liminal spaces.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Status:	Unpublished
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN3311 Prose. Prose fiction P Language and Literature > PR English literature
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/6215

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