Beyond the Metropolis: French and Belgian Symbolists between the Region and the Republic of Letters

Laqua, Daniel; Verbruggen, Christophe

doi:10.3366/ccs.2013.0090

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Decentredness is reflected in a substantial portion of the country's culture, especially the blossoming of Symbolism during the 1880s–1890s (McGuinness, 2007), constituting a quantum leap in poetic modernity with deep roots in the provincial. In the words of the social historians Daniel Laqua and Christophe Verbruggen, based in north-eastern England and Belgium's Flemish-speaking North, ‘cosmopolitanism […] maintain[ed] an ambivalent relationship with concepts of nationhood’ (2013: 249). Several disciplines offer empowering views of such provincially oriented interconnectedness: in translation studies, there has been attentiveness to ‘micro-cosmopolitan thinking […] which does not involve the opposition of smaller political units to larger political units (national, transnational)’ (Cronin, 2006: 15); explorations in architectural history have led to the concept of ‘provincial cosmopolitanism’ (Chattopadhyay, 2012: 63); sociology has addressed the glocal in terms of how ‘globalization is currently being reflexively reshaped in […] projects of glocalization’ (Robertson, 1995: 41).…”

Section: Strategy 1: Appreciating the Universal In The Provincialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming provincialism

2022

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This article argues against the lingering pejorative usage of the term ‘provincialism’ in public discourse in particular. It engages with transnational debates emerging from Australia and French-speaking settings, where provincialism often denotes backwardness, isolation, and a lack of high culture. Through explorations of (a) the universalizing value of the provincial and (b) the diversifying concept of ‘provincializing’, the article advocates for a reconceptualization of the term ‘provincialism’. This is worthwhile on at least two counts: challenging stale dichotomies such as cosmopolitan/unworldly; acknowledging the agency of so-called ‘provincials’ and their essential cultural contributions. The article contributes to debates in human geography and related disciplines by unpacking longstanding questions of inclusion and exclusion. Ultimately, it reclaims the value of provincialism as a term with the capacity to bridge varied areas of scholarship, thereby fostering empowerment and moving beyond deleterious ideas of geography.

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