The poetics of walking in Juan Manuel Roca and Thomas Harris

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze an aspect of the poetics of walking present in the works of Juan Manuel Roca and Thomas Harris: the physical and ontological trajectories through sentimental territories that point at a subversion of large cities' organization structure and nature, as well as their fast pace and capitalism. This study is primarily guided by theoretical frameworks from the physiology of the flâneur and the philosophy of walking. One of the conclusions posits that the poetics of walking in the examined authors evoke nostalgic, decelerated ways of moving through the city and the topography of memory, which signals the emergence of an aesthetic, an ethics, and a politics of slowness and solitude.