Writing the modern city : literature, architecture, modernity / edited by Sarah Edwards and Jonathan Charley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Edwards, Sarah, 1973-

Charley, Jonathan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Architecture and literature.

Space (Architecture) in literature.

Architecture and philosophy.

Physical Description:

xv, 233 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2012.

Summary:

Literary texts and buildings have always represented space, narratedcultural and political values, and functioned as sites of personal and collective identity. In the twentieth century, new forms of narrative have represented cultural modernity, political idealism and architectural innovation. Writing the Modern City explores the diverse and fascinating relationships between literature, architecture and modernity and considers how they have shaped the world today.

This collection of thirteen original essays examines the ways in which literature and architecture have shaped a range of recognisably 'modern' identities. It focuses on the cultural connections between prose narratives - the novel, short stories, autobiography, crime and science fiction - and a range of urban environments, from the city apartment and river to the colonial house and the utopian city. It explores how the themes of memory, nation and identity have been represented in both literary and architectural works in the aftermath of early twentieth-century conflict; how the cultural movements of modernism and postmodernism have affected notions of canonicity and genre in the creation of books and buildings; and how and why literary and architectural narratives are influenced by each other's formal properties and styles.

The book breaks new ground in its exclusive focus on modern narrative and urban space. The essays examine texts and spaces that have both unsettled traditional definitions of literature and architecture and reflected and shaped modern identities: sexual, domestic, professional and national. It is essential reading for students and researchers of literature, cultural studies, cultural geography, art history and architectural history. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Time, space and narrative: reflections on architecture, literature and modernity / Jonathan Charley Charley, Jonathan 1

Part I Memory, nation, identity 19

2 Remembering and forgetting: private and public lives in the imagined nation / Sarah Edwards Edwards, Sarah 21

3 Poets, tramps and a town planner: a survey of Raymond Unwin's on-site persona / Brian Ward Ward, Brian 32

4 Unhomely desire: dismantling the walls of difference in Gora's Kolkata / Mark Mukherjee Campbell Campbell, Mark Mukherjee 56

5 'The past forsworn': colonialism and counterhistory in the work of Doris Lessing / Victoria Rosner Rosner, Victoria 78

Part II Movement, culture, genre 95

6 Drugs, crime and other worlds / Jonathan Charley Charley, Jonathan 97

7 Architectural crimes and architectural solutions / Peter Clandfield Clandfield, Peter 108

8 Philip K. Dick's disturbanism: towards psychospatial readings of science fiction / David T. Fortin Fortin, David T. 127

9 Alexander Trocchi: Glasgow through the eye of a needle / Gary A. Boyd Boyd, Gary A. 146

Part III Narrative, form, space 165

10 Anonymous encounters: the structuring of space in postmodern narratives of the city / Sarah Edwards Edwards, Sarah 167

11 The novel architecture of Georges Perec / Stefanie Elisabeth Sobelle Sobelle, Stefanie Elisabeth 178

12 Sex happens: a phenomenological reading of the casual encounter / Renée Tobe Tobe, Renée 191

13 'There are different ways of making the streets tell': narrative, urban space and orientation / Inga Bryden Bryden, Inga 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0415591511

9780415591515

9780415591508

0415591503

9780203149966

0203149963

OCLC:

606777807

Publisher Number:

99947524795