This collection explores the various forms of narrative, semiotic, and technological mediation that shape the experience of place. From the East End of London to Navajo lands to Ground Zero, Lived Topographies examines the great effect of language, mass media, surveillance, and other incursions of the contemporary world on topographical experience and description. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi have assembled a wide array of scholars to provide an interdisciplinary approach to this subject, giving this rich, focused collection a unique perspective on the phenomenology of place.