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Chapter 5 - Phantasmagorical Terrain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2025

Aaron Nyerges
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

Chapter 5 begins by reading Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House as an experiment in cinematic projection, a phantasmagoric erasure of the means of projection. I compare Cather’s cartographic romance to that of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s Moana of the South Seas, the first film to be called “documentary.” Both the Flahertys and Cather mark US national space against the anachronism of the remote island. Spinning this view around, I tell the story of Fialelei, who served as producer and translator for the Flahertys in Sāmoa. She also accompanied them to the United States, and her voyage embodies the Samoan principle of the Vā, or “space-between.” This Oceanian counterpoint provides a new position for studying the role of cinematic fantasy in isolating the “primitive” from “civilized,” and projecting the former onto the “insular.”

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Phantasmagorical Terrain
  • Aaron Nyerges, University of Sydney
  • Book: American Modernism and the Cartographic Imagination
  • Online publication: 09 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009515320.006
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  • Phantasmagorical Terrain
  • Aaron Nyerges, University of Sydney
  • Book: American Modernism and the Cartographic Imagination
  • Online publication: 09 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009515320.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Phantasmagorical Terrain
  • Aaron Nyerges, University of Sydney
  • Book: American Modernism and the Cartographic Imagination
  • Online publication: 09 October 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009515320.006
Available formats
×