Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is a bold, thoughtful, and transformative book on ‘the urban’ as a point of encounter that enables an interdisciplinary understanding and transcending of alienation in urban culture from a Marxist point of view. It is required reading for anyone seeking to challenge the ‘dematerialising’ condition of urban culture in and beyond the academy. -- Adam David Morton, Professor of Political Economy, University of Sydney
A wide-ranging and compelling set of essays, which demonstrate the continuing importance of spatial theory in the political interpretation of books and films. This rich and evocative collection unearths both the spectacular and mundane political life of cities as diverse as Vienna, Osaka, and Liverpool, and follows a multitude of characters as they navigate the radical possibilities of their times. As serious as it shows the study of space and power to be, this is also an enjoyable travelogue through the political geographies of the capitalist city. -- Donald McNeill, professor of urban and cultural geography, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Foreword: Urbanism as World Culture and Here Comes Everybody by Andy Merrifield Introduction: What Is Urban Culture? by Benjamin Fraser Part I. MOBILIZING THE FILMIC CITY Chapter 1. The Archive City: Film as Critical Spatial Practice Les Roberts Chapter 2. Capital, Mobility and Spatial Exclusion in Fernando León de Aranoa’s Barrio (1998) Malcolm Alan Compitello Part II. THE HUMAN SENSES IN URBAN CONTEXTS Chapter 3. Henri Lefebvre in Strasbourg: The City as Use Value in José Luis Guerín’s Dans la ville de Sylvie (2007) Benjamin Fraser Chapter 4. Sensing Capital: Sight, Sound and Touch in Esteban Sapir’s La antena (2007) Benjamin Fraser Part III. CULTURES OF URBAN PROTEST Chapter 5. Psychoprotest: Dérives of the Quebec Maple Spring Marc James Léger and Cayley Sorochan Chapter 6. The Huelga de Dolores and Guatemalan University Students’ ‘Happy and Wicked’ Reproduction of Space, 1966-1969 Heather A. Vrana Part IV. THE HOUSING QUESTION Chapter 7. Residential Differentiation in the Vertical Cities of J. G. Ballard and Robert Silverberg Jeff Hicks Chapter 8. Red Vienna, Class and the Common Kimberly DeFazio Part V. (INTER)NATIONALIZING THE URBAN Chapter 9. Urban Culture as Passive Revolution: A Gramscian Sketch of the Uneven and Combined Transitional Development of Rural and Urban Modern Culture in Europe and Egypt Jelle Versieren and Brecht De Smet Chapter 10. The Urban Working-Class Culture of Riot in Osaka and L.A.: Toward a Comparative History Manuel Yang, Takeshi Haraguchi, and Kazuya Sakurada Index Notes on Contributors
