scholarly journals Dickens’s Consumptive Urbanity: Consumption (Tuberculosis) through the Prism of Victorian Sensibility

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-43
Author(s):  
Hristo Boev

This article examines the correlation between consumption and tuberculosis in Dickens’s city, tracing the evolution of its representations in his novels. It compares these representations to the coverage of the disease in Victorian newspapers against criticism on tuberculosis and literature. In so doing, the article establishes Dickens as a writer divided by his scientific approach as a city life chronicler and his Victorian imagination. Since consumption and consumerism as a phenomenon appeared in the mid-19th century, the text also aims to determine the dimensions of the interaction between consuming the city and being consumed by it and how this is related to tuberculosis. The researched material includes early to mid-Dickens’s works since tubercular presence is the strongest felt and the most significant there; thus, consumption (tuberculosis) in Dickens can be considered the Janus face of early consumerism, resulting from insufficient consumption of food and proper care.

Prospects ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 169-196
Author(s):  
Guy Szuberla

Some time after the Civil War, writers of American etiquette books marked the rise of the city by introducing new sections on “etiquette in the street” and “conduct in a crowd.” No one should look to their texts and the accompanying illustrations for a faithfully detailed and documented history of 19th-century city life. The stiff, cutout figures that walk through city streets in these old line drawings represent a particular fantasy of social order, focused in the figure and type of the lady and gentleman. “Walk slowly, do not turn your head … and,” The Ladies' Book of Etiquette (1876) warned, “avoid any gesture or word that would attract attention.” That advice is illustrated, with punctilious care, in Gentleman Meeting a Lady, a line drawing in John Young's 1882 guide, Our Deportment (Figure 1). The gentleman and the lady make no apparent eye contact; they, in strict observance of propriety, look off and away from each other. Again, in Alice Emma Ives's Social Mirror (1886), the ladies who illustrate the way to give a gentleman “formal street recognition” grant it with averted eyes and unturned heads. Ives quite properly avoids the word “meet” (Figure 2).


2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 464-482
Author(s):  
Elle-Mari Talivee

“The city is a state of mind,” observed the American urban sociologist Robert Ezra Park (Bennett et al. 2008: 35). The mapper of several literary cities, the Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, concludes in his memoir about his home town Istanbul that, instead of the southern sun, it is the warmth of people that glows around this city. Nowadays Estonia is mainly characterized as an urbanized country. Although the city was for some authors a happy space as early as in the 19th century, beginning with C. R. Jakobson, it was generally common practice to disapprove of the city and city life in 19th century Estonian poetry and this lasted for quite a long time, until the 1920s (Kepp 2003: 378). How was the city portrayed in prose? This article concentrates on the beginning of city writing in Estonian literature: the transition from village stories to early urban prose. The first known original Estonian literary work was a poem, a lamentation titled “Oh, ma vaene Tarto liin!” (Oh Me, the Poor Town of Tartu!), dedicated to the town of Tartu, which had been ravaged in the Nordic War. The sacristan from the Puhja parish church, named Käsu Hans, wrote it in 1708, probably also inspired by a Biblical parallel, the destruction of Jerusalem. However, it was almost two hundred years later that the first equivalent efforts in prose occurred, during the original flourishing of Estonian literature of the National Awakening, in the middle of the nineteenth century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
Lyudmila S. Timofeeva ◽  
Albina R. Akhmetova ◽  
Liliya R. Galimzyanova ◽  
Roman R. Nizaev ◽  
Svetlana E. Nikitina

Abstract The article studies the existence experience of historical cities as centers of tourism development as in the case of Elabuga. The city of Elabuga is among the historical cities of Russia. The major role in the development of the city as a tourist center is played by the Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. The object of the research in the article is Elabuga as a medium-size historical city. The subject of the research is the activity of the museum-reserve which contributes to the preservation and development of the historical look of Elabuga and increases its attractiveness to tourists. The tourism attractiveness of Elabuga is obtained primarily through the presence of the perfectly preserved historical center of the city with the blocks of integral buildings of the 19th century. The Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, which emerged in 1989, is currently an object of historical and cultural heritage of federal importance. Museum-reserves with their significant territories and rich historical, cultural and natural heritage have unique resources for the implementation of large partnership projects. Such projects are not only aimed at attracting a wide range of tourists, but also stimulate interest in the reserve from the business elite, municipal and regional authorities. The most famous example is the Spasskaya Fair which revived in 2008 in Elabuga. It was held in the city since the second half of the 19th century, and was widely known throughout Russia. The process of the revival and successful development of the fair can be viewed as the creation of a special tourist event contributing to the formation of new and currently important tourism products.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Stavros Stavrides

This paper explores a renewed problematization of contemporary metropolises' dynamics in the light of speci fic efforts to reclaim the city as commons. Building on Lefebvre's theorizations of the city's virtuality and comparing it to contemporary approaches to the urban condition that emphasize the potentialities of contemporary city-life, it suggests that urban commoning is unleashing the power of collective creativity and collaboration. Struggles to appropriate the city as a crucial milieu for sharing transforms parts of city and produces new patterns of urban living. Examples from Latin American urban movements focused on establishing emancipatory housing conditions are used to illustrate the transformative capabilities of urban commoning.


2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110025
Author(s):  
Claire Hancock

This paper questions the ‘seeing like a city’ vs. ‘seeing like a state’ opposition through a detailed discussion of urban politics in the city of Paris, France, a prime example of the ways in which the national remains a driving dimension of city life. This claim is examined by a consideration of the shortcomings of Paris’s recent and timid commitment local democracy, lacking recognition of the diversity of its citizens, and the ways in which the inclusion of more women in decision-making arenas has failed to advance the ‘feminization of politics’. A common factor in these defining features of the Hidalgo administration seems to be the prevalence of ‘femonationalism’ and its influence over municipal policy-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 317
Author(s):  
Ahmad M. Senousi ◽  
Junwei Zhang ◽  
Wenzhong Shi ◽  
Xintao Liu

A city is a complex system that never sleeps; it constantly changes, and its internal mobility (people, vehicles, goods, information, etc.) continues to accelerate and intensify. These changes and mobility vary in terms of the attributes of the city, such as space, time and cultural affiliation, which characterise to some extent how the city functions. Traditional urban studies have successfully modelled the ‘low-frequency city’ and have provided solutions such as urban planning and highway design for long-term urban development. Nevertheless, the existing urban studies and theories are insufficient to model the dynamics of a city’s intense mobility and rapid changes, so they cannot tackle short-term urban problems such as traffic congestion, real-time transport scheduling and resource management. The advent of information and communication technology and big data presents opportunities to model cities with unprecedented resolution. Since 2018, a paradigm shift from modelling the ‘low-frequency city’ to the so-called ‘high-frequency city’ has been introduced, but hardly any research investigated methods to estimate a city’s frequency. This work aims to propose a framework for the identification and analysis of indicators to model and better understand the concept of a high-frequency city in a systematic manner. The methodology for this work was based on a content analysis-based review, taking into account specific criteria to ensure the selection of indicator sets that are consistent with the concept of the frequency of cities. Twenty-two indicators in five groups were selected as indicators for a high-frequency city, and a framework was proposed to assess frequency at both the intra-city and inter-city levels. This work would serve as a pilot study to further illuminate the ways that urban policy and operations can be adjusted to improve the quality of city life in the context of a smart city.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12-3) ◽  
pp. 250-258
Author(s):  
Mahomed Gasanov ◽  
Abidat Gazieva

The article is devoted to the analysis of the historiography of the history of the city of Kizlyar. This issue is considered in the historical context of the Eastern Caucasus. The author analyzes the three main theoretical concepts of the problem concerning Russia’s policy in the region, using the example of the city of Kizlyar in the context of historiography.


2013 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio E. Nardi ◽  
Adriana Cardoso Silva ◽  
Jaime E. Hallak ◽  
José A. Crippa

Until the beginning of the 19th century, psychiatric patients did not receive specialized treatment. The problem that was posed by the presence of psychiatric patients in the Santas Casas de Misericórdia and the social pressure from this issue culminated in a Decree of the Brazilian Emperor, D. Pedro II, on July 18, 1841. The “Lunatic Palace” was the first institution in Latin America exclusively designed for mental patients. It was built between 1842 and 1852 and is an example of neoclassical architecture in Brazil, located at Saudade Beach in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In the 1930s and 1940s, the D. Pedro II Hospital was overcrowded, and patients were gradually transferred to other hospitals. By September of 1944, all the patients had been transferred and the hospital was deactivated. Key words: psychiatry, history, madness.


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