Toward an Urban Cultural Studies is a call for a new interdisciplinary area of research and teaching. Blending Urban Studies and Cultural Studies, this book grounds readers in the extensive theory of the prolific French philosopher Henri Lefebvre.
This book presents a cross-cultural approach to the study of urban space. Essays written by major contributors in contemporary urban studies provide a range of case studies from Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe to address important questions about space and power, processes of change, aesthetics and attitudes toward space, and social divisions expressed through urban life. The essays fall into three interlocking sections: conceptual and linguistic approaches to urban space; visual and social examinations of world cities; and policy examinations of spatial analyses. Together with the jointly compiled bibliography, this collection of essays is designed to stimulate comparative debate and identify new areas for urban research. Essays contrast empty space in Barcelona and Savannah, explore the concept of healthy and unhealthy urban environments in the classical writings and in modern-day Vienna, and develop a model of space for Shanghai from the point of view of privacy. The subcultural ethos characterizing Tokyo and the castle as a symbol for the community in Japan are two more essay topics. The plaza in Spanish-American towns, the outdoor spaces in Italy (balcony, street, courtyard), and the school in Honduras are sites for socio-cultural analyses in three more essays. The last group of essays focus on discourses in urban planning, especially the responses of people to the growth, marketing, and decay of residential places. African-American neighborhoods and waterfront development provide examples for this section. These essays in their theoretical and geographical breadth make significant strides in defining the cultural meaning of urban space. They will be read with interest by city planners, ecologists, and other social scientists involved in finding human solutions to the metropolitan environment.
Postgrowth Imaginaries brings together environmental cultural studies and postgrowth economics to examine radical cultural shifts sparked by the global financial crisis. The globalization of an economic culture addicted to constant growth destroys the ecological planetary systems while failing to fulfil its social promises. A transition toward what Prádanos calls 'postgrowth imaginaries'--the counterhegemonic cultural sensibilities that are challenging the growth paradigm--is well underway in the Iberian Peninsula today.
Marxism and Urban Culture is the first volume to reconcile social science and humanities perspectives on culture. Covering a range of global cities—Bologna, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mahalla al-Kubra, Mexico City, Montreal, Osaka, Strasbourg, Vienna—the contributions fuse political and theoretical concerns with analyses of urban cultural practices and historical movements, as well as urban-themed literary and filmic art. Conceived as a response to the persistent rift between disciplinary Marxist approaches to culture, this book prioritizes the urban problematic and builds implicitly and explicitly on work by numerous thinkers: not only Karl Marx but also David Harvey, Henri Lefebvre, Friedrich Engels and Antonio Gramsci, among others. Rather than reanimate reductive views either of Marx or of urban theory, the chapters in Marxism and Urban Culture speak broadly to the interdisciplinary connections that are increasingly the concern of cultural scholars working across and beyond the boundaries of geography, sociology, history, political science, language and literature fields, film studies, and more. A foreword written by Andy Merrifield (the author of Metromarxism) and an introduction by Benjamin Fraser (the author of Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience) situate the book’s chapters firmly in interdisciplinary terrain.
This set includes key pieces from Peter Ackroyd, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Homi Bhaba, Charles Dickens, Fredrick Engles, Paul Gilroy, Thomas Hobbes, Max Weber, George Simmel, Ian Sinclair, Edward W. Soja, Gayatri Spivak, Nigel Thrift, Virginia Woolf, Sharon Zukin, and many others. The material is arranged thematically highlighting the variety of interests that coexist (and conflict) within the city. Issues such as gender, class, race, age and disability are covered along with urban experiences such as walking, politics & protest, governance, inclusion and exclusion. Urban pathologies, including gangsters, mugging, and drug-dealing are also explored. Selections cover cities from around the globe, including London, Berlin, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Bombay and Tokyo. A general introduction by the editor reviews theoretical perspectives and provides a rationale for the collection. This collection offers a valuable research tool to a broad range of disciplines, including: sociology; anthropology; cultural history; cultural geography; art critical theory; visual culture; literary studies; social policy and cultural studies.
Addresses ways that cultural imaginaries point toward alternative urban futures. In this book James Scorer argues that culture remains a force for imagining inclusive urban futures based around what inhabitants of the city have in common. Using Buenos Aires as his case study, Scorer takes the urban commons to be those aspects of the city that are shared and used by its various communities. Exploring a hugely diverse set of works, including literature, film, and comics, and engaging with urban theory, political philosophy, and Latin American cultural studies, City in Common paints a portrait of the city caught between opposing forces. Scorer seeks out alternatives to the current trend in analysis of urban culture to read Buenos Aires purely through the lens of segregation, division, and enclosure. Instead, he argues that urban imaginaries can and often do offer visions of more open communities and more inclusive urban futures.
Today, cities are being intensively reshaped by unexpected dynamics. The rise and growth of the digital economy have fundamentally changed the relationship between the urban fabric and its resident community, overcoming the conventional hierarchy based on production priorities. Moreover, contemporary society discovers new labour conditions and ways of satisfying needs and desires by developing new synergies and links. This book examines cultural and urban commons from a multidisciplinary perspective. Economists, architects, urban planners, sociologists, designers, political scientists, and artists explore the impact and implications of cultural commons on urban change. The contributions discuss both cases of successful urban participation and cases of strong social conflict, while also addressing a host of institutional contradictions and dilemmas. The first part of the book examines urban commons in response to institutional constraints from a theoretical point of view. The second and third parts apply the theories to case studies and discuss various practices of sustainable planning and re-appropriation in the urban context. In closing, the fourth part develops a new urban agenda as artists imagine it. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the social, economic and institutional implications of cultural and urban commons, and provide useful insights and tools to help local governments and policymakers manage social, cultural and economic change.
*What is distinctive about urban life? *What key trends have shaped the contemporary city? *How have the city and urban cultures been explained by sociology and cultural studies? This is the first book to explore cities and urban life from the perspectives of both sociology and cultural theory. Through an interdisciplinary approach and use of case material, the book demonstrates that the 'real' city of physicality and struggle and the 'imagined' city of representations are entwined in the construction of urban cultures. Starting with a comparison of the rural and the urban, the book considers ways of imagining the city and of conceptualising urban cultures. It goes on to investigate the implications of several pivotal urban and cultural trends, such as the use of the arts and local cultures in city re-imaging, and the ways in which modernism, postmodernism and globalisation have shaped the built environment and the orientation of academic enquiry. Also examined is the way in which representations of the urban landscape in film, literature, art, and popular texts, have informed dominant ideas about the way certain city spaces - including city centres, urban waterfronts, and so-called 'global cities' - should look, function and 'feel'. Designed as a text for undergraduate courses in cultural studies, sociology and wider social science, this book traces the development of urban environments from the nineteenth century to the present, and illuminates the nature of urban life.
Over the past decades, the growing interest in the study of literature of the city has led to the development of literary urban studies as a discipline in its own right. The Routledge Companion to Literary Urban Studies provides a methodical overview of the fundamentals of this developing discipline and a detailed outline of new directions in the field. It consists of 33 newly commissioned chapters that provide an outline of contemporary literary urban studies. The Companion covers all of the main theoretical approaches as well as key literary genres, with case studies covering a range of different geographical, cultural, and historical settings. The final chapters provide a window into new debates in the field. The three focal issues are key concepts and genres of literary urban studies; a reassessment and critique of classical urban studies theories and the canon of literary capitals; and methods for the analysis of cities in literature. The Routledge Companion to Literary Urban Studies provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to the city in literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on city literature. Chapter 15 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com
Asian Alterity is an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis that vigorously contests the homogeneity of the mainstream Eurocentric values. Part I argues for the need for an alternate perspective to be introduced so as to understand the diversity of Asia's cultural differences at their varied development stages and to meet the complex challenges of the explosive urban expansion and disruptive changes in traditional cultures and lifestyles.Part II of the book consists of nine case studies of Asian major urban cities by well-established academic writers and urban theorists. Each author presents diverse aspects of urban dynamism. The case studies will collectively demonstrate a broad framework to understand the essentiality of the interdisciplinary mode of Cultural Studies as an important lens towards meeting the challenges in Asian Architecture and Urbanism.Highlights of the book: