Popular Culture Review Volume 30, Number 2, Summer 2019 | Page 68

What ’ s lit got to do with it ? Deconstructing the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
literary ties to places are used for their profitability potential as a tourist attraction . Many locations employ a connection to authors as a means to draw visitors , justify preservation and revitalization efforts , request funding , or gain historic and protected status . Shopping centers bear the names of generation-defining authors , whole landscapes are preserved in the name of local essayists , and souvenir shops sell t-shirts , snow globes , and shot glasses featuring iconic area writers . To create a unique sense of place , hotels , restaurants , and bars claim that famous novelists slept here , ate here , and drank here , cities erect statues to pay tribute to native literary sons and daughters , and otherwise obscure towns host festivals events to authors ... all in the name of tourism .
Regardless however of whether this is undertaken as a means to attract tourists or as an honest attempt to honor a person ’ s creative talents , the related author is memorialized , deemed worthy of recognition for the literary work created . As Lowenthal points out , commemoration in any form implies cultural importance ( Lowenthal 27 ). As such , the values popularly associated with an author and his or her literary works are inscribed upon the local landscape ( Rigney 77 ), and in turn , tourists flock to otherwise indistinguishable destinations simply because literary connections set them apart from neighboring locations ( Herbert 80 ). Tourists ’ willingness to visit these places and pay tribute to a writer further solidifies the related author ’ s literary and cultural significance . In turn , Buell ( 190 ) argued that memorializing an author implies readership . Active admiration for an author and the values expressed in texts ( in the form of tourism ), he contends , works to demarcate related texts as classics : worthy of honoring and reading . Another recent study also suggested visiting a literary location and participating in site-specific , literature-inspired activities may motivate tourists to read
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