Listening to Los Angeles in the Theatre of Anna Deavere Smith and Gabriel Kahane

Modern Drama ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-441
Author(s):  
Christian DuComb
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Jean Baudrillard ◽  
Anna Deavere Smith ◽  
Musical Scores ◽  
Frederic Jameson ◽  
Recorded Performances ◽  
The City

Postmodern theorists such as Jean Baudrillard, David Harvey, and Frederic Jameson have tended to approach cities through the eye rather than the ear, often citing Los Angeles as a prototypical example of an urban simulacrum. This article takes up two works of theatre that focus on listening to rather than looking at Los Angeles. Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993) and Gabriel Kahane’s The Ambassador (2014) use voice and music, respectively, to sound out neglected histories and experiences overlooked by theorists who apprehend Los Angeles primarily through vision. Through the close reading of dramatic texts, musical scores, and live and recorded performances of these two works, this article troubles the pervasive ocularcentrism in critical interpretations of Los Angeles, using theatre to theorize a more inclusive dramaturgy and geography of the city.

Utopian Visions in United States Urbanism

Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 164) (4) ◽  
pp. 157-186
Author(s):  
James M. McCutcheon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
New World ◽  
New Technology ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Central Park ◽  
Garden Cities ◽  
Oneida Community ◽  
The City

America’s appeal to Utopian visionaries is best illustrated by the Oneida Community, and by Etienne Cabet’s experiment (Moreana 31/215 f and 43/71 f). A Messianic spirit was a determinant in the Puritans’ crossing the Atlantic. The Edenic appeal of the vast lands in a New World to migrants in a crowded Europe is obvious. This article documents the ambition of urbanists to preserve that rural quality after the mushrooming of towns: the largest proved exemplary in bringing the country into the city. New York’s Central Park was emulated by the open spaces on the grounds of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. The garden-cities surrounding London also provided inspiration, as did the avenues by which Georges Haussmann made Paris into a tourist mecca, and Pierre L’Enfant’s designs for the nation’s capital. The author concentrates on two growing cities of the twentieth century, Los Angeles and Honolulu. His detailed analysis shows politicians often slow to implement the bold and costly plans of designers whose ambition was to use the new technology in order to vie with the splendor of the natural sites and create the “City Beautiful.” Some titles in the bibliography show the hopes of those dreamers to have been tempered by fears of “supersize” or similar drawbacks.

Los Angeles in the 1930sThe WPA Guide to the City of Angels

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federal Writers Project of the Works ◽  
David Kipen
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
The City

Review: Urban Latino Cultures: La Vida Latina en LA by Gustavo Leclerc, Raúl Villa, and Michael J. Dear (eds.)

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Catherine S. Ramirez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crime Wave ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The City ◽  
History Of Los Angeles

Throughout the twentieth century (and now the twenty-first), the specter of a Latina/o past, present, and future has haunted the myth of Los Angeles as a sunny, bucolic paradise. At the same time it has loomed behind narratives of the city as a dystopic, urban nightmare. In the 1940s Carey McWilliams pointed to the fabrication of a “Spanish fantasy heritage” that made Los Angeles the bygone home of fair señoritas, genteel caballeros and benevolent mission padres. Meanwhile, the dominant Angeleno press invented a “zoot” (read Mexican-American) crime wave. Unlike the aristocratic, European Californias/os of lore, the Mexican/American “gangsters” of the 1940s were described as racial mongrels. What's more, the newspapers explicitly identified them as the sons and daughters of immigrants-thus eliding any link they may have had to the Californias/os of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or to the history of Los Angeles in general.

Városutópiák környezetpszichológiai és szimbolikai elemzése

2003 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edit Lippai ◽  
Andrea Dúll
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Jersey City ◽  
The City

A városépítészet egész történetét végigkísérik a „Jó város - jó társadalom” elképzelések, vagyis az utópiák. A jelen tanulmányban néhány, a szépirodalomban megjelent ideális, tökéletes, kívánt városelképzelést, vagyis eutópiát elemzünk környezetpszichológiai és szimbolikai szempontból. A városok tényleges téri-társadalmi szerkezetének és folyamatainak, valamint ezek mentális-érzelmi leképezodésének vizsgálata egyidos a környezetpszichológiával. A kutatást Kevin Lynch (1960) úttöro vizsgálatai alapozták meg, amelyeket „A város képe” (The Image of the City) címu klasszikus könyvében publikált. Lynch három amerikai város - Boston, Los Angeles és Jersey City - lakosságának reprezentatív mintáin végzett kutatásában a lakók mentális térképeit vizsgálta. Kutatásának eredményei szerint az emberek fejében él egy kép a városukról (image of the city), ami a városlakó orientációs bázisa és egyúttal esztétikai-formai struktúra. Összehasonlítva a három amerikai városról alkotott mentális térképeket, Lynch rájött, hogy bizonyos környezeti elemek általános térkép-jellegzetességnek tekinthetok: utak (paths), határok (edges), lakónegyedek (districts), csomópontok (nodes), iránypontok (landmarks). Az utópiák három csoportra oszthatók: idobeli (múlt- és a jövobeli), térbeli (négy világtáj irányában, illetve magasban vagy mélyben levo) és abszolút (képzeletbeli) utópiákra. Az általunk elemzett idobeli utópiák: Atlantisz, Mennyei Jeruzsálem, Minas Tirith és Diaspar, térbeli utópiák: Nekeresd, Napváros, Eldorado és abszolút utópia: Elefántcsonttorony. Ezeket a városutópiákat ebben a munkában kulturális városképeknek tekintettük, és ily módon elemeztük fizikai, észlelheto elemeiket. Vizsgálatunk során arra az érdekes felfedezésre bukkantunk - természetesen Lynch munkájáról nem is tudva -, hogy az utópiák megalkotói pontosan az általuk empirikusan feltárt fenti szempontok alapján írták le információikat az általuk tökéletesnek tartott városról. Elemzésünk eredménye szerint leírhatók a vágyott város ismérvei általában: 1. széles, jó alapanyagból készült sugárutak, 2. jól elkülönített határok és szélek, amelyek védenek, s tagolják a város szerkezetét és 3. a városon belül tágas tereket, kerületeket fognak közre, valamint 4. a csomópontokban a vizuális tájékozódást segíto jellegzetes és látványos tereptárgy van. A városok lakóit többek között közös szimbólumrendszer és a kommunikáció adott, megszokott módja kapcsolja egymáshoz. Az utópikus városok szimbolikus „kognitív térképeinek” funkciója - a valós városokéhoz hasonlóan - az lehet, hogy keretet és biztonságos kapaszkodót nyújtanak egy ideális világban, megteremtik az arról való közös kommunikáció lehetoségét, és ily módon kifejezik, létrehozzák és fenntartják az emberek vágyott tökéletes helykötodését és helyidentitását.

Wastewater treatment and risk assessment in ocean outfall evaluations

1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (10) ◽  
pp. 309-316
Author(s):  
William F. Garber
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Advanced Treatment ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Ocean Outfall ◽  
Treatment And Disposal ◽  
The City

Past evaluations of the success of wastewater treatment and submarine outfall placement and operation have considered only a limited number of parameters affecting the marine and onshore environments. Important questions regarding the best allocation of available funds have not been adequately addressed. The relative contamination of the sea from airborne and landwash contaminants has not been considered. Neither has the increased air pollution deriving from the energy required for advanced treatment. Similarly, regular epidemiological studies to evaluate actual changes in morbidity arising from drastic changes in treatment and disposal have not been made prior to very large committments of funds. Most importantly, little attention has been given to the relative ranking of all environmental risks within a catchment area. The net result is that, when all factors are considered, the very large expenditures and increased energy use for sanitary wastewater treatment and outfall disposal will have a net negative effect on the physical and societal environment. The City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Metropolitan area can be used to illustrate this probability.

The New Age for Sewer Planning at the City of Los Angeles

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (12) ◽  
pp. 1353-1359
Author(s):  
Mario Dimzon ◽  
Fernando Gonzalez ◽  
Ali Poosti ◽  
Adel Hagekhalil ◽  
Erick Heath ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
New Age ◽  
The City

The Resilient City

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Oklahoma City Bombing ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
The City

In 1871, the city of Chicago was almost entirely destroyed by what became known as The Great Fire. Thirty-five years later, San Francisco lay in smoldering ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. Or consider the case of the Jerusalem, the greatest site of physical destruction and renewal in history, which, over three millennia, has suffered wars, earthquakes, fires, twenty sieges, eighteen reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religious faith to another. Yet this ancient city has regenerated itself time and again, and still endures. Throughout history, cities have been sacked, burned, torched, bombed, flooded, besieged, and leveled. And yet they almost always rise from the ashes to rebuild. Viewing a wide array of urban disasters in global historical perspective, The Resilient City traces the aftermath of such cataclysms as: --the British invasion of Washington in 1814 --the devastation wrought on Berlin, Warsaw, and Tokyo during World War II --the late-20th century earthquakes that shattered Mexico City and the Chinese city of Tangshan --Los Angeles after the 1992 riots --the Oklahoma City bombing --the destruction of the World Trade Center Revealing how traumatized city-dwellers consistently develop narratives of resilience and how the pragmatic process of urban recovery is always fueled by highly symbolic actions, The Resilient City offers a deeply informative and unsentimental tribute to the dogged persistence of the city, and indeed of the human spirit.

The semiotics of the deictic field: Reckoning language and experience in East Los Angeles

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
Dana Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
East Los Angeles ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Speaker ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
Formative Experiences ◽  
The City

AbstractThis analysis examines the ways in which a single speaker, Ana, born in mid-century East Los Angeles, organizes and reflects upon her experiences of the city through language. Ana’s story is one that sheds light on the experiences of many Mexican Americans who came of age at a critical time in a transitioning L.A., and the slow move of people who had been up until mid-century relegated largely in and around racially and socioeconomically segregated parts of L.A. These formative experiences are demonstrated to have informed the ways that speakers parse the social and geographical landscape along several dimensions, and this analysis interrogates the symbolic value of a special category of everyday language, deixis, to reveal the intersection between language and social experience in the cityscape of L.A. In this way, it is analytically possible to not only approach the habituation and reproduction of specific deictic fields as indexical of the ways that speakers parse the city, but also to demonstrate the ways in which key moments in the history of the city have shaped the emergence and meaning of those fields.

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