Searching for the Broad Present: The Chronotope in Teju Cole’s Open City

Abstract

Abstract Teju Cole’s Open City provides a suitable springboard for insight into the dynamic ways in which Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s concept of a broad present might relate to the spatial-temporal configurations of a text. More specifically, Open City uses a combination of formal and stylistic approaches to illustrate the instability innate in modern, urban spaces to demonstrate the approaching apocalyptic visions of the future as well as the torrential multiplicity of histories that threaten to subsume the present. Stable notions of time are shown to be paralyzing, and alternatives ought to be sought out in presenting a sense of space-time that is free from the stagnation promised by dominant modes of spatial-temporal configurations.