Psychogeographic Otherworlds: Experiencing Englishness with Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair

Abstract

This thesis concerns the practice of ‘psychogeography’ in London, England, and the ways in which psychogeographic writings provoke in city-dwellers an acute sense of disorientation, as though the everyday were otherworldly. My study is intended as a response to Guy Debord’s claim that ‘psychogeography’ investigates “the precise laws […] of the geographical environment” on “the emotions and behaviour of individuals” (Debord qtd. in Coverley 88): any revolutionary enterprise must point to the future, the very notion of which can only be imprecise and un-empirical – psychogeography is not necessarily an exception. I argue that for Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair, the psychogeographic imperative is rather to imagine the implosion of Londonscape as it is well known, since only spatial structures that thus unravel may offer mystical insights that are, as yet, unspoiled by neoliberal/Thatcherite politics and the accompanying ambition to re-vamp English history in a nostalgic light. This study presents psychogeography not simply as a strategy of political resistance but as a visceral and metaphysical experience; it draws upon SF theories of worlding and the philosophical notion of Dasein to address some concerns that have arisen in post-imperial Britain, such as the desire to define English identity, i.e., ‘Englishness.’