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This book investigates the iconic architectural cultural spaces of the contemporary cityscape as engines of regeneration. Promising much to their fading locales, these spaces locate culture in the space where production once ruled in order to revitalise post-industrial urban provinces. With close attention to four sites across the UK, Urban Constellations engages with the work of Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard, to read these spaces and in so doing, offer a critical intervention into the theory and experience of contemporary cityscapes. Developing the notion of surface ethnography as a methodological approach to examining the form of cultural experience produced by urban cultural spaces, the author sheds light on the manner in which they transform cultural spectatorship, express wider political and ecological concerns and offer differing views to the ’native’ and the ’tourist’ in the construction of local history. The book also examines the decline of the idea that iconic projects can drive regeneration, in the failures and delays that can beset such undertakings. Offering a rich examination of the legacy of urban change in its most recent formulation - that of cultural regeneration - this book reveals the fragile potential of the spaces produced by contemporary ’dream houses’ and as such, will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, sociology and social theory, urban studies, cultural geography and architecture.
Cities are an unprecedented focus of attention: over half the world now lives in them, culture and politics are shaped by them, and they are also focal points for new relationships between nature, technology and the human body. This essay collection brings together a range of cutting-edge international scholarship on cities, urbanisation and urban culture. The format of the collection is a series of small essays in the spirit of Benjamin, Kracauer and other innovative forms of writing and observation. The collection explores themes such as new forms of political mobilisation, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature and the presence of collective memory. Cultural aspects of urban change are also considered including the work of artists, film makers and others, who have sought to critically engage with processes of urban change. The global scope of the collection includes essays in Berlin, Chicago and London, as well as less extensivily studied citites such as Chennai, Jakarta and Lagos.
"Queer Constellations investigates the dreams and catastrophes of recent urban history viewed through new queer narratives of inner-city life. The "gay village," "gay mecca," ""gai Paris," the "lesbian flaneur," the "lesbian boheme"--these and other urban phantasmagoria feature paradoxically in this volume as figures of revolutionary utopia and commodity spectacle, as fossilized archetypes of social transformation and ruins of haunting cultural potential. Dianne Chisholm introduces readers to new practices of walking, seeing, citing, and remembering the city in works by Neil Bartlett, Samuel Delany, Robert Gluck, Alan Hollinghurst, Gary Indiana, Eileen Myles, Sarah Schulman, Edmund White, and David Wojnarowicz. Reading these authors with reference to the history, sociology, geography, and philosophy of space, particularly to the everyday avant-garde production and practice of urban space, Chisholm reveals how--and how effectively--queer narrative documentary resembles and reassembles Walter Benjamin's constellations of Paris, "capital of the nineteenth century." Considering experimental queer writing in critical conjunction with Benjamin's city writing, the book shows how a queer perspective on inner-city reality exposes contradictions otherwise obscured by mythic narratives of progress. If Benjamin regards the Paris arcade as a microcosm of high capitalism, wherein the (un)making of industrial society is perceived retrospectively, in contemporary queer narrative we see the sexually charged and commodity-entranced space of the gay bathhouse as a microcosm of late capitalism and as an exemplary site for excavating the contradictions of mass sex. In Chisholm's book we discover how,looking back on the ruins of queer mecca, queer authors return to Benjamin to advance his "dialectics of seeing"; how they cruise the paradoxes of market capital, blasting a queer era out of the homogeneous course of history.
Did you know that stars are seasonal? That Orion is one of the brightest constellations? That a single day on Venus is longer than an entire year on Venus? Space has captivated mankind since the beginning of time. Fifty years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the moon and since then our knowledge of astronomy has continued to expand. With so many mysteries yet to be solved, science journalist Abigail Beall takes readers on an astonishing journey though the landscape of space. In The Art of Urban Astronomy, you will be guided through the seasons and learn about the brightest stars and constellations, the myths and legends of astronomy and how to identify star clusters and galaxies with just your eyes or a pair of binoculars. For urban dwellers wrapped up in the rush and bustle of the city, it can be calming and truly valuable to take the time simply to stop, look and reconnect with nature. Packed full of seasonal star charts, constellation charts and fascinating facts, this is the perfect guide for those who have looked up at the night sky and don't know where to begin. After reading this book, you'll never look up in the same way again.
Drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives on conviviality, this book considers the ways in which Latin America, a continent marked by deep inequalities, has managed to afford, create, sustain, and contest forms of living together with difference across time and space. Interdisciplinary in approach and presenting studies from various nations across the continent – from the medieval period to the present day – it considers the ways in which Latin America might contribute to our understanding of the relationship between inequality, difference, diversity, and sociability. As such, it will appeal to scholars of history, sociology, geography, anthropology, development studies, postcolonial and social theory with interests in Latin American studies, and in the contingencies and contradictions of living together in profoundly unequal societies.
A practical guide to viewing the universe.
Summer romance meets a passion for the environment in this timeless young adult novel. When Julia’s mother announces that she might be selling the family’s campground to a real estate developer, Julia is crushed. How could she stand to leave her childhood home? Then Julia finds an unlikely ally — the developer’s son, Nick — who wants to help her family raise the money they need to keep the campground running. Can Julia trust him to conspire against his own father? And could she ever trust him with her heart? This tender story reminds readers of summer’s possibilities … and how sometimes love is written in the stars.
Winner, 2021 Glenda Laws Award given by the American Association of Geographers The first lesbian and queer historical geography of New York City Over the past few decades, rapid gentrification in New York City has led to the disappearance of many lesbian and queer spaces, displacing some of the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community. In A Queer New York, Jen Jack Gieseking highlights the historic significance of these spaces, mapping the political, economic, and geographic dispossession of an important, thriving community that once called certain New York neighborhoods home. Focusing on well-known neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Park Slope, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Crown Heights, Gieseking shows how lesbian and queer neighborhoods have folded under the capitalist influence of white, wealthy gentrifiers who have ultimately failed to make room for them. Nevertheless, they highlight the ways lesbian and queer communities have succeeded in carving out spaces—and lives—in a city that has consistently pushed its most vulnerable citizens away. Beautifully written, A Queer New York is an eye-opening account of how lesbians and queers have survived in the face of twenty-first century gentrification and urban development.
The works of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are widely acclaimed as being among the most original and provocative writings of twentieth-century critical thought, and have become required reading for scholars and students in a range of academic disciplines. This book provides a lucid introduction to Benjamin's oeuvre through a close and sensitive reading not only of his major studies, but also of some of his less familiar essays and fragments. Gilloch offers an original interpretation of, and fresh insights into, the continuities between Benjamin's always demanding and seemingly disparate texts. Gilloch's book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social theory, literary theory, cultural and media studies and urban studies who are seeking a sophisticated yet readable overview of Benjamin's work. It will also prove rewarding reading for those already well-versed in Benjaminian thought.
Offers amateur astronomers a guide to techniques and available technologies for observing the night sky from an urban location, discussing optimal weather conditions, ways to reduce the effects of light, different types of telescopes, and readily seen celestial bodies