Toward an Urban Cultural Studies PDF Download

Author: Benjamin Fraser
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137498560
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
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.

Author: Robert Rotenberg
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
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.

Author: James Scorer
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438460570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
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.

Author: Chris Jenks
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415304986
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
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.

Author: Diane Crane
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1452245908
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The Production of Culture is timely and relevant. . . . Diana Crane introduces the reader to this busy field of scholarly activity, organizes the strands of theory and empirical research in an orderly fashion, and advances some bold notions about the relationship between organizational ′contexts′ and innovation. --Contemporary Sociology "Crane melds numerous sources concisely and clearly in her argument that cultural forms cannot be understood ′apart from the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.′ . . . looks like a good start to a useful series." --Communication Booknotes "Crane′s overview is clearly written and does an effective job of incorporating concepts and theories from communication, cultural studies, economics, and literature, as well as her home territory, sociology." --Communication Booknotes How does the media shape and frame culture? How does media entertainment vary under different conditions of production and consumption? What types of meanings and ideologies do these modes of production convey, and how do they change over time? How does media culture differ from other forms of recorded culture produced in nonindustrial settings? In The Production of Culture, the inaugural volume in the new Foundations of Popular Culture series, Diana Crane argues that these are the kinds of questions social scientists should concern themselves with. She contends that recorded cultures simply cannot be understood apart from the contexts in which they are produced and consumed. A review and synthesis of the current media literature, Crane′s work examines both the popular and elite levels of media production. This investigation allows readers to understand how the notion of production can change depending on the size of the audience and/or the structure of the cultural industry. A systematic and accessible approach to a complex topic, The Production of Culture will have appeal not only to professors and students of cultural studies, but will also interest those studying sociology and art history.

Author: Emanuela Macrì
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030544184
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
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.

Author: William Siew Wai Lim
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814475181
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
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:

Author: Bas van Heur
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839413745
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This book offers a fundamental contribution to the literature on the creative industries and the knowledge-based economy by focusing on three aspects: urban spaces as key sites of capitalist restructuring, creative industries' policies as state technologies aimed at economic exploitation, and the role of networks of aesthetic production in inflecting these tendencies. It simultaneously goes beyond these debates by integrating a concern with the cultural and aesthetic dimensions of the creative industries. As such, the book is relevant to researchers interested in the transdisciplinary project of a cultural political economy of creativity and urban change.

Author: Luis I. Pradanos
Publisher:
ISBN: 1786941341
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
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.

Author: Michael E. Leary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136266534
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Book Description
In the past decade, urban regeneration policy makers and practitioners have faced a number of difficult challenges, such as sustainability, budgetary constraints, demands for community involvement and rapid urbanization in the Global South. Urban regeneration remains a high profile and important field of government-led intervention, and policy and practice continue to adapt to the fresh challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, as well as confronting long standing intractable urban problems and dilemmas. This Companion provides cutting edge critical review and synthesis of recent conceptual, policy and practical developments within the field. With contributions from 70 international experts within the field, it explores the meaning of ‘urban regeneration’ in differing national contexts, asking questions and providing informed discussion and analyses to illuminate how an apparently disparate field of research, policy and practice can be rendered coherent, drawing out common themes and significant differences. The Companion is divided into six sections, exploring: globalization and neo-liberal perspectives on urban regeneration; emerging reconceptualizations of regeneration; public infrastructure and public space; housing and cosmopolitan communities; community centred regeneration; and culture-led regeneration. The concluding chapter considers the future of urban regeneration and proposes a nine-point research agenda. This Companion assembles a diversity of approaches and insights in one comprehensive volume to provide a state of the art review of the field. It is a valuable resource for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in Urban Planning, Built Environment, Urban Studies and Urban Regeneration, as well as academics, practitioners and politicians.