scholarly journals Speculative fiction and African urban futures: Reading Imagine Africa 500

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Doseline Kiguru
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
African City ◽  
City Space ◽  
Physical Setting ◽  
The Future ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
The City

This article explores the place of the future African city as presented in contemporary African speculative fiction. It focuses on the short stories in the collection Imagine Africa 500 to look at how the urban space is conceptualized in these narrations of an imagined future Africa, 500 years from now. While the discussion looks at the urban space and imagined technological development, it also takes note of ecological narratives and the contrast drawn between the city and the rural, the local and the foreign, as imagined for the future. The article aims to provoke a debate on the imaginations of what a future African city may look like as presented through literary works and the significance of these imaginings today within developmental and environmental lenses. The aim is to look not only at the creative text but the literary production mechanisms that produce these texts, taking note of the significance of the city space as a physical setting for literary organizations that produce such texts as well as a central theme in the narratives told through these platforms. It reads the future city through use of language, space, form and style to look at how the modern short story is theorizing on African futures.

Historical Bratislava in literary fiction and film adaptation

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-157
Author(s):  
Dominika Hlavinová Tekeliová
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Structural Element ◽  
City Space ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
The City ◽  
First World

Abstract The aim of the paper is to characterize the city of Bratislava after the First World War as a literary space in the short story The Worst Crime in Wilson City (Najhorší zločin vo Wilsonove) and its film adaptation Wilson City (Wilsonov). For millions of Czechs and Slovaks, the US President W. Wilson was a legendary figure. The multi-ethnic city wanted to gratify him and suggested to name itself after him. This short episode of our history was found interesting for a Slovak writer Michal Hvorecký, who set a mysterious (horror) short story in Wilson City (Bratislava). The topos of the city became the basic organizational, or, structural element on which the story is built. In the film adaptation of the Czech director Tomáš Mašín there was a generic shift and the film became a detective comedy, or parody of historical events that happened (or could have happened). The paper focuses on the motif of the city and compares this urban space in the literary and film form. It tries to answer the question whether the city – space is only a backdrop of the story or it becomes its (role)player.

Ukraina Wschodnia jako przestrzeń symboliczna w prozie Serhija Żadana – na podstawie powieści Woroszyłowgrad i Mezopotamia

2020 ◽  
pp. 233-248
Author(s):  
Marta Zambrzycka ◽  
Paulina Olechowska
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
City Space ◽  
Current Events ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The City

The subject of the article is an analysis of the three aspects of depicting urban space of Eastern Ukraine, focusing specifi cally on the Donbass region and the city of Kharkov as depicted in the novels Voroshilovgrad (2010) and Mesopotamia (2014) by Serhiy Zhadan. The urban space of Eastern Ukraine overlaps with the most important values that shape a person’s personality and aff ect her or his self-identifi cation. The city space is also a “place of memory” and experiences of generations that infl uence current events. In addition to the historical and axiological dimension, the imaginative aspect of space is also important. This approach is used by the author to describe the urban space as a functioning imagination or stereotypes associated with it as opposed to its realistic depiction.

scholarly journals Cultural Memory and Urban Space in Shaping Cultural Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 160-183
Author(s):  
Valentyna Bohatyrets ◽  
Liubov Melnychuk
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Archives ◽  
City Space ◽  
New Type ◽  
The City ◽  
Historic Cities

Nowadays, in the age of massive spatial transformations in the built environment, cities witness a new type of development, different in size, scale and momentum that has been thriving since late 20th century. Diverse transformation of historic cities under modernisation has led to concerns in terms of the space and time continuity disintegration and the preservation of historic cities. In a similar approach, we can state that city and city space do not only consist of present, they also consist of the past; they include the transformations, relations, values, struggles and tensions of the past. As it could be defined, space is the history itself. Currently, we would like to display how Chernivtsi cultural and architectural heritage is perceived and maintained in the course of its evolution. Noteworthy, Chernivtsi city is speculated a condensed human existence and vibes, with public urban space and its ascriptions are its historical archives and sacred memory. Throughout the history, CHERNIVTSI’s urban landscape has changed, while preserving its unique and distinctive spirit of diversity, multifacetedness and tolerance. The city squares of the Austrian, Romanian and Soviet epochs were crammed with statuary of royal elites and air of aristocracy, soviet leaders and a shade of patriotic obsession, symbolic animals and sacred piety – that eventually shaped its unique “Bukovynian supranational identity”. Keywords: Chernivtsi, cultural memory, memory studies, monuments, squares, identity.

scholarly journals SMO and SMM Models of Tourist Area Promotion as a Form of Social Interaction in the Vital City Space

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1061-1063
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Reputation Management ◽  
Community Formation ◽  
Trust Level ◽  
City Space ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Brand Promotion ◽  
The City

The article shows a significant role of social networks in the system of forms of social interaction in the vital city space. The task to identify the most popular platforms for promotion SMO and SMM – brands in the tourist area of a hero city Volgograd was chosen as the key tool. The study identified the effectiveness of priority methods of given marketing practices such as the community formation of brand of territory, work with blogosphere, reputation management, personal branding and extraordinary promotion. The conditions for the infinite social interaction are created in these forms in open ICT environment for the residents and the city guests who have common interests in urban space. The research has accomplished the following tasks such as identification of the most popular open platforms for SMO and SMM of tourist area brand promotion of a hero city Volgograd, detection of related communities, identification of a trust level to them, establishment of their purposes and the range of issues of their interest, places and attractions, related to the brand of territory; uncovering of factors and mechanisms which detect mood changing of the target audience and creation of methodological templates which allow to develop, implement and optimize SMO and SMM campaigns

scholarly journals THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF PUBLIC CATERING IN THE CONTEXT OF TOURIST CITY SPACE DEVELOPMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-981
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Vishnevskaya ◽  
Tatiana B. Klimova ◽  
Inna S. Koroleva ◽  
Olga K. Slinkova ◽  
Svetlana N. Yasenok
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
City Space ◽  
Public Catering ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Purpose: The modern city with its complex structure and dynamics is an important part of the tourist space, which has become especially attractive for travelers who tirelessly exploring the cultural heritage. Hotels, restaurants, amusement parks and other tourist infrastructure actively invading the urban environment changed the usual composition of the city. During the trip, tourists buy not only goods and services, they perceive the image of the city as a synthesis of impressions from the movement in the urban space, exploring it from different points of view, at different times of the day and in different seasons. Methodology: To assess the impact of environmental factors on the activities of catering enterprises of the Belgorod region and the quality of customer service, the authors proposed a method using STEP-analysis and SWOT-analysis. The analysis of environmental factors was carried out on the basis of the expert evaluation results conducted in two stages. Result: In tourism, the food infrastructure acts as an important element of entertainment and knowledge of local culture. Food is not just a common need of every person; tourists see it as entertainment and pleasure. Food of different peoples and even areas is usually very peculiar, so attractive to tourists. Catering infrastructure as an integral part of the hospitality industry should have a significant potential for adaptability, providing an opportunity for catering enterprises to respond quickly to frequent changes in the situation of the unstable tourism market, as well as to comply with the requirements of the destination brand. Applications: This research can be used for universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of The Infrastructure of Public Catering In the Context of Tourist City Space Development is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.

Ato Quayson's Oxford Street, Accra: Tracing Autobiographical Narrative in Analytical Method

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 496-504
Author(s):  
Anjali Prabhu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
African City ◽  
Creative City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Implicit Argument ◽  
Oxford Street ◽  
The City ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

In his fascinating study of accra, ato quays0n quickly alerts his reader to the idea that one must not separate ways of knowing shakespeare from ways of knowing Accra. “Reading” the city as a literary critic, but much more, Quayson gives a discursive framework to his historical account of the material, social, and esoteric life of the city. Underlying the text is an implicit argument with other prominent accounts of African cities, which take a more utopian view and present these cities as mapping the innovative, exciting, and creative possibilities of urban space for the rest of the world. Quayson's mode of history is explicitly linked to storytelling in a number of ways beyond his disclosure that “[t]he retelling of Accra's story from a more expansive urban historical perspective is the object of Oxford Street” (4). From the start, it is also clear that his approach will utilize a broadly Marxian framework, which is to see (city) space in terms of the built environment as well as the social relations in and beyond it: “space becomes both symptom and producer of social relations” (5). But ultimately Quayson's apprehension of his city is Marxian because it recuperates ideas, desires, and creativity from the realm of the unique or inexplicable, of “genius,” to effectively insert them into various systems of production or into spaces that lack them. In so doing Quayson enhances, not hinders, our appreciation of those forms of innovation. Also Marxian is his employment of the “negative,” which refers to the way he splits apart many of the accepted relations between things in the scholarship on the development of the city, the postcolonial African city in particular, and pushes beyond the evidence of the “booming” or “creative” city. Quayson thus binds a more philosophical method of reasoning to his analysis of urban social relations while he straddles different disciplines. His work is illuminated when we locate a personal impulse, which we will track through the autobiographical narrative, to intervene not just in the ways the city is understood but also in the ways it is actually developing.

scholarly journals Emerging Biophilic Urbanism: The Value of the Human–Nature Relationship in the Urban Space

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Totaforti
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Sociology ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Biophilic Design ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The research presented in this article adopts an urban sociology perspective to explore the relationship between spaces designed with biophilic principles and people’s pro-environmental values and behaviors. The research hypothesized that biophilic design and planning promote connectedness with nature and are positively related to pro-environmental and more sustainable values and behaviors. The contemporary city asserts the need for new paradigms and conceptual frameworks for reconfiguring the relationship between the urban environment and the natural environment. In order to understand whether biophilic design, planning, and policies can meet the global challenges regarding the future existence on earth of humans, focus groups were conducted to investigate how people’s relationship with the built-up space and the natural landscape is perceived, and to what extent the inclusion of nature and its patterns at various levels of urban planning meets people’s expectations. The results suggest that biophilic design and planning can be considered a useful paradigm to deal with the challenges that are posed by the city of the future, also in terms of sustainability, by reinterpreting and enhancing the human–nature relation in the urban context.

scholarly journals City-campus, or Educational Space of the City. Methodological Construct

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
S. A. Smirnov
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Educational Infrastructure ◽  
City Space ◽  
Basic Infrastructure ◽  
Educational Potential ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

The article considers the city from the point of view of its educational potential and in the categories of educational space, approaching the main cultural and historical forms of the city as educational institutions. With this review, at least three focus points are retained: 1) Consideration of the city space and its infrastructure as an educational space and educational infrastructure that are not reducible to usual school and university (the latter should also be culturally and historically distributed, showing their basic etymons and missions); 2) Consideration of education as an institution of educational and, more broadly, anthropological practices of the development and formation of a person, and not as a disciplinary institution and matrix; 3) Consideration of the repertoire of anthropological practices development as a practice unfolding in urban space. It is shown that these three foci act as mirrors directed at each other, mirroring and showing each other mutual potential and mutual scarcity, the need for each other. The actual wealth (thesaurus) of the urban space depends on the density, frequency and variety of connections between these areas. Next, we look at specific cultural and historical forms, such as the Temple, School, Museum, University, etc., which constitute the basic infrastructure nodes of the city space itself. These cultural institutions are considered not so much from the point of view of their internal tasks, but from the position of their place in the city, in the urban space, with regard to their place and role as special educational nodes-institutions in this space. Further, the urban space is considered in the categories of the campus city, in which this space is linked by different anthropological practices repertoires.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malini Guha
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
City Space ◽  
Cinematic City ◽  
The City

This introductory chapter examines a configuration that brings together globalization, urban space and the cinema, taking a series of contemporary films set in London and Paris as primary case studies. What these films have in common are migrant mobilities of various types, ranging from asylum seekers and clandestine migrants, to the first generation of settled migrants as well as economic migrants. The chapter focuses on mobilities that reveal the contradictions of the globalizing process while also contesting a view of city space in these films as non-places. The analysis of these films also exhibits early scholarly trends on the cinematic city and its central preoccupation with European modernity, the city, and the cinema.

Picket lines and parades: labour and urban space in early twentieth-century London and Chicago

Urban History ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUTH PERCY
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
City Space ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
The City

ABSTRACTGarment strikes in London and Chicago provide a setting to consider the role of the city in early twentieth-century labour struggles. While strikers in the two cities shared similar experiences and confronted similar imaginings of the city, they faced different built environments. The comparative approach thus highlights the importance of considering spatial dynamics when studying strikers’ strategies. Journalists’ and other onlookers’ responses to picket lines, parades or mass meetings reflected normative understandings and expectations of workers’ behaviour, especially if those workers were young, women or ethnic minorities. The article considers the ways in which strikers in early twentieth-century London and Chicago transgressed contemporary perceptions of their cities by appropriating city space and by subverting behavioural norms in spaces where they did belong. I argue that the strikers drew attention to their struggles via their atypical use of the city streets and that occupying these spaces helped unify the strikers and thus strengthen the strike.

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