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Anke Gleber examines one of the most intriguing and characteristic figures of European urban modernity: the observing city stroller, or flaneur. In an age transformed by industrialism, the flaneur drifted through city streets, inspired and repelled by the surrounding scenes of splendor and squalor. Gleber examines this often elusive figure in the particular contexts of Weimar Germany and the intellectual sphere of Walter Benjamin, with whom the concept of flanerie is often associated. She sketches the European influences that produced the German flaneur and establishes the figure as a pervasive presence in Weimar culture, as well as a profound influence on modern perceptions of public space....
Photography, cinema, and video have irrevocably changed the ways in which we view and interpret images. Indeed, the mechanical reproduction of images was a central preoccupation of twentieth-century philosopher Walter Benjamin, who recognized that film would become a vehicle not only for the entertainment of the masses but also for consumerism and even communism and fascism. In this volume, experts in film studies and art history take up the debate, begun by Benjamin, about the power and scope of the image in a secular age. Part I aims to bring Benjamin's concerns to life in essays that evoke specific aspects and moments of the visual culture he would have known. Part II focuses on precise i...
Updated to reflect the most current thinking on urban studies, The Blackwell City Reader, Second Edition features a comprehensive selection of multidisciplinary readings relating to the analysis and experience of global cities. Includes new sections of materialities and mobilities to capture the most recent debates The most international reader of its kind, including extensive coverage of urban issues in Asia, China, and India Combines theoretical approaches with a wide range of geographical case studies Organized to be used as a stand-alone text or alongside Blackwell's A Companion to the City
Between 1870 and 1940, tens of thousands of Australian women were drawn to London, their imperial metropolis and the center of the publishing, art, musical, theatrical, and educational worlds. Even more Australian women than men made the pilgrimage "home," seeking opportunities beyond those available to them in the Australian colonies or dominion. In tracing the experiences of these women, this volume reveals hitherto unexamined connections between whiteness, colonial status, gender, and modernity.
The sudden fall of the Berlin Wall is one of the defining images of the late twentieth century. The subsequent unification of Germany and the decision to return Berlin to its status as capital has made the constant changes within the city a matter of public interest. It also offered Berlin the opportunity to create a new image for itself, one that can serve as a counterbalance to the politically charged recent history of Berlin as the capital of Nazi Germany and former East Berlin as the capital of the German Democratic Republic. Poised between capitalist Western Europe and the former communist powers in Eastern Europe, Berlin occupies a fascinating geopolitical space. This anthology presents a unique glimpse into the various constituencies that make up Berlin and that impact the city's challenges and promises.
Since the early 1990s, while mainland China’s state-owned movie studios have struggled with financial and ideological constraints, an exciting alternative cinema has developed. Dubbed the “Urban Generation,” this new cinema is driven by young filmmakers who emerged in the shadow of the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989. What unites diverse directors under the “Urban Generation” rubric is their creative engagement with the wrenching economic and social transformations underway in China. Urban Generation filmmakers are vanguard interpreters of the confusion and anxiety triggered by the massive urbanization of contemporary China. This collection brings together some of the most recen...
"This collection of essays revisits gender and urban modernity in nineteenth-century Paris in the wake of changes to the fabric of the city and social life. In rethinking the figure of the flâneur, the contributors apply the most current thinking in literature and urban studies to an examination of visual culture of the period, including painting, caricature, illustrated magazines, and posters. Using a variety of approaches, the collection re-examines the long-held belief that life in Paris was divided according to strict gender norms, with men free to roam in public space while women were restricted to the privacy of the domestic sphere." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0743/2007533305-d.html.
Examining European art films of the 1950s and 1960s, Mark Betz argues that it istime for film analysis to move beyond prevailing New Wave historiography, mired in outdated notions of nationalism and dragged down by decades of auteurist criticism. Focusing on the cinemas of France and Italy, Betz reveals how the flowering of European art films in the postwar era is inseparable from the complex historical and political frameworks of the time.
Looks at how racial identity is produced in novels by James, Faulkner and Morrison and makes the non-essentialist argument that "race" becomes visible to us through a process of image production and exchange.
Drawing on "Jules and Jim" and other films by Francois Truffaut, the author provides an in-depth examination of the multifaceted relationship between Truffaut and Henri-Pierre Roche, the French writer and art collector. The book also moves beyond Truffaut's films to explore the intertwined lives and works of other famous artists and intellectuals.