Project title

American Spy Novels and the Locations of Espionage, 1965-2020

Research question

What worlds do American spy novels create? Which locations appear in their pages, and with what degree of specificity - national, regional, city, neighbourhood, street, landmark? How do the imaginary geographies of different spy series and novelists resemble each other, and how do they differ? And why do spy novels imagine the world in the ways they do?

Project description

Christian Long investigates the imaginary geography of American spy fiction in the decades following the Second World War, treating genre literature as a form of public education. Challenging the assumption that mass-audience fiction simplifies the world for its readers, he argues that Cold War spy thrillers in fact expanded their readers’ geographical imagination — mapping not just what the secret world looks like, but where it can be found, its hot spots and blank spots alike. By taking seriously the literal worlds that spy thrillers construct, Long opens up a new way of understanding the geography of American Cold War culture.

Selected publications

  • Infrastructure in Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic Film, 1968-2021. Intellect, 2024.
  • ReFocus: The Films of Albert Brooks. Edinburgh Univeristy Press, 2021.
  • The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema, 1960-2000. Intellect, 2017.