The Hybrid Flâneur in Teju Cole’s Open City: A Bhabhian Reading

Document Type : Research in linguistic and literary studies

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Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University

Abstract

In Teju Cole’s Open City (2011), Julius, the half-Nigerian, half-German psychiatrist is struck by solitude. In his attempt to alleviate that solitude, he takes to flânerie, an old tradition which was practised by bourgeois Parisian men in the nineteenth century and which has come to acquire new meanings over time. While traditionally flânerie meant leisurely strolling the streets and boulevards of Paris, hence allowing the stroller to engage with the urban space as a voyeur, it has come to encompass the predicaments of the modern and postmodern idler as well. Julius takes to aimless wandering in the city of New York and later extends his flânerie to Brussels. Through his aimless wandering, he constantly meets hybrid characters who, like himself, inhabit liminal spaces. New York, becomes the “Open City” of the title, where new meanings are formulated without any final conclusions, and where concepts related to interstitiality and liminality are constantly activated. The following paper aims to examine flânerie in Teju Cole’s Open City from a Bhabhian perspective through applying Bhabha’s concepts of hybridity, the third space, mimicry and ambivalence to a novel which takes place first and foremost in intermediary spaces.

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