Walking and the Pedestrian in Literature and Social Practice
Foot Notes

By (author) Andre Furlani

ISBN13: 9781350273696

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Format: Hardback

Published: 02/04/2026

Availability: Not yet available

Description
Lively, adventurous and comprehensive, this book offers a fascinating account of the contemporary culture of pedestrianism and serves as both investigation and celebration of walking and its literature. Pedestrians have joined the forward ranks of current political debate, social thought and aesthetic practice, with consequences that this book illuminates in literature, art, digital culture and political life from around the globe. Ingeniously structured around the root word 'gress', chapters move through ingress, egress, progress, regress, aggress, congress, digress, transgress and gress itself to touch on matters as diverse as walking as a political and activist activity; notions of pilgrimage; matters of race and indigineity; animal studies; environmental studies; and digital culture. Extraordinarily comprehensive in its coverage, it examines works by writers including W G Sebald; Anne Carson; Chinua Achebe; Cormac McCarthy; Jamaica Kincaid; Paul Celan; Arundhati Roy; Norman Mailer and many more. While its subject is as timeless as the Pliocene footprints preserved in the tuff of Laetoli it is also as timely as lockdown, social distancing, pedestrian-repurposed commercial streets and the anti-racism marches. It demonstrates the scale, diversity and impact of the extensive contemporary walking literature and art in the context of the social forces and politics this resurgence enables.
Introduction: Foot Notes Chapter 1: Ingress: Flânerie Stalking Vagrancy Chapter 2: Egress: Hiking Scavenging Foraging Chapter 3: Progress: Pilgrimage Chapter 4: Aggress: Marching Chapter 5: Digress: Straggling Chapter 6: Gress: Tramping Chapter 7: Walking Towards Genre: The Excursus Conclusion: The Digital Walk Bibliography Index
  • Anthologies (non-poetry)
  • Literary studies: from c 1900 -
  • Literary studies: post-colonial literature
  • General (US: Trade)
  • Professional & Vocational
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List Price: £85.00