Résumé: America’s commercialism has often been weighed against Europe’s cultural expertise; the former’s artificiality and the latter’s originality have constituted the chiastic standard for an imaginative geography of cultural hierarchy. This outlook has further legitimized the general belief that America could not provide the necessary funds for artistic distinction. As a high-cultural expatriate, Henry James emphasized the superiority of European ways through his constant transatlantic comparisons. His choice of Europe came as an immediate consequence of his firm belief that literary genius is spatially determined. Yet the syllogism James advances in his travelogue The American Scene (1907) that “Europe had been romantic years before, because she was different from America; wherefore America would now be romantic because she was different from Europe” reshuffles all understandings of his poetics of space. In this paper I propose to study James’s revision/negotiation, in The American Scene, of the metaphors of space that he had long attributed to America. I try to demonstrate his transformation into a “fond investor” with a highly mobile sensibility, who is motivated by the intellectual economy to impart meaning to national symbols in order to reinvent more “romantic” spatial syntaxes about his forsaken motherland. I also attempt to show that, as part of his negotiation with the American donnée, he undertakes a curative rescinding of his racial prejudices.

Résumé: This paper investigates the symbolic significance of cultural references and metaphors in programming, focusing on their use in variable names and code comments. The study explores how personal anecdotes, naming conventions, and cultural artifacts are integrated into code through a comprehensive email survey of programmers and computer science professors, coupled with content analysis of existing codebases. The research reveals that these elements enhance code readability and memorability and foster a shared cultural context within development teams. Key findings highlight the use of mythology, literature, pop culture, historical references in naming conventions, as well as the impact of personal stories in comments on the codebase community. The study also examines the delicate balance between creative expression and maintaining code clarity, offering insights into best practices for incorporating cultural elements in programming. By illuminating the narrative and symbolic dimensions of coding practices, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the human and cultural aspects of software development, with implications for both professional practice and computer science education.