The aim of this volume is to explore some of the ways in which notions of space and place inform cultural products and processes, as well as symbolic expression more generally. We do this by examining the links between a selection of those phenomena and a variety of aspects of human spatiality. Underpinning the study is an approach to the relationship between spatiality and symbolic expression that seeks to identify and make explicit the main elements of that relationship. We believe this affords an opportunity to focus on those elements in ways that bring to the fore the most salient characteristics of each. Despite the much vaunted 'spatial turn" witnessed in humanities research in recent decades, there is still a tendency to elide discussion of this element of symbolic expression, or to offer only superficial interpretations of its significance in the discussion of topics such as those addressed here.