Cartography and Renewal in Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the ways in which contemporary American writer Rebecca Solnit renews traditional approaches to map making by emphasizing both the imaginative and the communal in cartography, through a combination of maps and storytelling. Presented like a traditional atlas and featuring twenty-two historical or subjective maps of the city, accompanied by essays, Infinite City illustrates not only the huge interest in maps and mapping manifest in American art since the 1960s but also the emergence of an alternative, community-based type of cartography. Inspired by literary models ( Italo Calvino’s Les Villes invisibles ) and critical cartography, Infinite City opens up the field of mapping to both interdisciplinary dialogue and subjective narrative. This article looks at how Infinite City navigates between the individual and communal relevance of mapping, while also examining its attempts to “un-discipline” cartography and place it within a larger community of disciplines and fields (literature, critical theory, visual arts).