The Antimodern Manifesto of the Rural Flaneur: When D'Arcy and John Go For a Wander

Abstract

Central to the self-definition of modernity walks the flanuer, the modern, observing, critical individual who wanders amidst but against the crowds and urban flows of modern life. Central to the flaneur is an identity that is incomplete, an existence that is dissatisfied. As Bauman notes, the flanuer is the mirror-image, the imitation, the product of the stock-taking, the forced adjustment and mimicry of the modern world - which is itself the original flaneur