An Abridged City: Santiago, Chile in Micro-Fiction

Authors

Keywords:

Representations of the city, place, short-story, abbreviated representation, aggregative space, Santiago de Chile

Abstract

In this article I touch on the relations between a micro-fiction literary contest and the production of meanings and urban representations. I concentrate my analysis on the description of how literary entries participating in this micro-fiction contest impart meaning to places within the city and how the contest is able to generate its own particular form of representation – an ‘abridged city.’ The contest is called ‘Santiago in 100 Words’ and has been taking place in Santiago, Chile since 2001. Literary works submitted must have a maximum of 100 words and must address ‘the city or urban contemporary life’. I analyzed a body of 595 micro-stories published between 2001 and 2012, paying special attention to the elements that literary critics have confirmed as fundamental to the genre of micro-fiction (characters, space/time and narrated activities). I complemented this approach with a thematic analysis of each micro-story. Via the analysis I identified two typical channels through which micro-stories generate meaning for the places to which they refer, as well as the way in which the contest creates (through an iterative and systematic manner) a representation of Santiago, Chile. These methods are relevant in understanding the way in which a functioning literary contest participates in the generation of collective references and the establishment of points of view and ways of perceiving the city.

References

http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/comment-fait-on-pour-publier-son-poeme-dans-le-metro_1661248.html [Accessed on January 12, 2016].

http://www.metro.sp.gov.br/cultura/poesia-metro/index.aspx [Accessed on January 12, 2016].

http://www.informador.com.mx/cultura/2011/304587/6/poemas-mexicanos-a-bordo-del-metro-del-distrito-federal.htm [Accessed on January 12, 2016].

Agamben, G. (2011). ¿ Qué es un dispositivo?. Sociológica (México), 26(73), 249-264.

http://www.revistasociologica.com.mx/pdf/7310.pdf.

Augé, M. (1997) La guerra de los sueños. Barcelona: Gedisa.

Austin, J. L. (1975) How to do things with words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Barthes, R. (1994) L’effet de réel. Œuvres Complètes. Tome II, pp. 84-89.

Bédard, M. (2002) ‘Une typologie du haut-lieu ou la quadrature d’un géosymbole.’ Cahiers de Géographie du Québec, 46 (127), pp. 49-74.

Bédard, M. (2002a) De l’être-ensemble à l’être-au-monde. Le rôle du haut lieu, Ethnologies Musées/Museums, 24 (2) pp. 229-241.

Bourdieu, P. (1992) Les règles de l’art. Paris: Seuil.

Bourdieu, P. (1997) Méditations pascaliennes. Paris: Seuil.

Brasca, R. (2000). Los mecanismos de la brevedad: constantes y tendencias en el microcuento. El Cuento en red: Estudios sobre la Ficción Breve, (1), 1.

Campos, L. "Les enjeux de la représentation de la ville: Santiago du Chili en cent mots." Saarbrücken: Editions universitaires européennes (2011).

Chalvon-Demersay, S. (1994) Mille scénarios : une enquête sur l’imagination en temps de crise. Paris: Métailié.

Chalvon-Demersay, S. (1996) Une société élective. Terrain. [Online] http://terrain.revues.org/document3392.html [Accessed 12 January 2016].

Chartier, R. (1994) Pouvoirs et limites de la représentation. Sur l’œuvre de Louis Marin. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ahess_0395-2649_1994_num_49_2_279267.

Debarbieux, B. (1998) ‘Les problématiques de l’image et de la représentation en géographie’. In Bailly, A. (Coord.), Les concepts de la géographie humaine. Paris, Armand Colin, pp. 199-211.

Eco, U. (1994) Seis paseos por los bosques narrativos. Barcelona: Lumen.

Epple, J. A. (2000). Novela fragmentada y micro-relato. El cuento en red. Estudios sobre la ficción breve, 1.

Epple, J. (n.d.) Los orígenes de la mini-ficción. Unpublished.

Fernández, J. (2005) Hacia la conformación de una matriz genérica para el microcuento hispanoamericano. Lit. lingüíst. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0716-58112005000100007&script=sci_arttext .

Fernández, J. (2008) Sobre aperturas, remates y pactos de lectura en el microcuento chileno. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.letrasdechile.cl.

Foucault, M. (1994) Dits et Écrits. 1954-1988. Tome III : 1976-1979. Paris: Gallimard.

Fraenkel, B. (2002) Les écrits de septembre. New York 2001. Paris: Textuel.

Fraenkel, B. (2007). Actes d'écriture: quand écrire c'est faire. Langage et société, (3), 101-112.

Franz, C. (2001) La muralla enterrada. Santiago, Chile: Planeta.

Genette, G. (1991) Fiction et diction. Paris: Seuil.

Genette, G. (2003) Figures II. Paris: Seuil.

Goodman, N. (1978) Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Greene, R. (2006). Mi Santiasco Querido: Exploraciones del imaginario urbano en cien palabras (Doctoral dissertation, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile).

Heinich, N. (2005). Les limites de la fiction. L'Homme, (3), 57-76.

Koch, D. (2000) ‘Retorno al micro-relato: algunas consideraciones.’ El cuento en red. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://cuentoenred.xoc.uam.mx/tabla_contenido.php?id_fasciculo=251.

Lanot, F. (2000) ‘La ville et la littérature’. In T. Paquot, M. Lussault, and S. Body-Gendrot (Coords.), La ville et l’urbain. Etats des savoirs. Paris: Découverte, pp. 115-127.

Larrea, M. (2007). ¿ Cuál es el futuro de la minificción?. Online][Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www. letrasdechile. cl.

Lindón, A. (2006) ‘Geografías de la vida cotidiana.’ In Lindón, Alicia and Daniel Hiernaux (dirs.), Tratado de geografía humana, Primera Edición. México, Anthropos - UAM Iztapalapa, pp. 356-400.

Lindón, A. (2008) ‘Los imaginarios urbanos y el constructivismo geográfico: los hologramas espaciales.’ EURE (Santiago), 33(99), pp.31-46.

Lynch, Kevin (1960) The Image of the City. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Marin, L. (1990) Préface – Image. Le frontispice des Contes-de-Perrault. Europe, nº68.

Marin, L. (1993) Des pouvoirs de l´image. Paris: Seuil.

Mitterand, H. (1994) L’illusion réaliste. De Balzac à Aragon. Paris: PUF.

Morand, C. (1977) Visión de Santiago en la literatura chilena. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Aconcagua.

Mujica, M. (2005) ‘Santiago en 100 palabras: escenas y fragmentos de la memoria.’ Eure, 31 (92), , pp.123-130.

Musset, A. (2005) De New-York à Coruscant. Paris: PUF.

Musset, A. (2007) ‘Entre la ciencia ficción y las ciencias sociales: el ‘lado oscuro’ de las ciudades americanas.’ EURE (Santiago), 33 (99), pp65-78.

Noguerol, F. (2000) Híbridos genéricos: la desintegración del libro en la literatura hispanoamericana del siglo XX. El cuento en red. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016]

http://cuentoenred.xoc.uam.mx/tabla_contenido.php?id_fasciculo=251.

Noguerol, F. (2009) Minificción e imagen: cuando la descripción gana la partida. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.letrasdechile.cl.

Perec, G. (2003) Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu parisien. Paris: Christian Bourgois Editeur.

Piatti, B. and Hurni, L. (2011) ‘Editorial. Cartographies of Fictional Worlds.’ The Cartographic Journal Vol. 48 No. 4 pp. 218–223.

Rancière, J. (2007) Politique de la littérature. Paris: Galilée.

Roger, A. (2001) Nus et paysages : essai sur la fonction de l’art. Paris: Aubier.

Rojo, V. (1996) Breve Manual para reconocer minicuentos. Caracas: Equinoccio - Ediciones de la Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Schaeffer, J-M. (2011). Petite écologie des études littéraires. Pourquoi et comment étudier la littérature? Vincennes: Editions Thierry Marchaisse.

Searle, J. (1995) The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin Books.

Searle, J. (1969) Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. London: Cambridge University Press.

Stierle, K., & Starobinski, J. (2001). La Capitale des signes: Paris et son discours. Les Editions de la MSH.

Velay-Vallantin, C. (1987). Le miroir des contes. Perrault dans les Bibliothèques bleues. In Chartier, R., Les usages de l’imprimé. Paris, Fayard, pp. 129-185.

Zavala, L. (1998) Seis problemas para la minificción, un género del tercer milenio: brevedad, diversidad, complicidad, fractalidad, fugacidad, virtualidad. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/teoria/hist/zavala2.htm

Zavala, L. (2006) ‘El cuento ultracorto: Hacia un nuevo canon literario’. [Online] [Accessed 12 January 2016] http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/teoria/hist/zavala3.htm.

Downloads

Published

2016-04-16

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2015)

Section

Theme Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).