scholarly journals The Transformation of the ‘Flaneur’ Figure to Bourgeois in Julian Barnes’s Metroland: A Critical Analysis

Author(s):  
Suraiya Sultana

Charles Baudelaire employs the notion of flaneur as an idle wanderer and a passionate observer of the city life in the context of nineteenth-century Paris. Walter Benjamin in the twentieth century revisits the same notion in a slightly different manner. For Benjamin, flaneur, on the one hand, can be overwhelmed by the phantasmagoria of the city life and can develop a ‘shock experience' and on the other hand, can respond to the stimuli of the urban ambiance and can exhibit instrumental means of thinking to cope with the altered environment. In this circumstance, the latter, as Benjamin argues, is also evocative of the prospect of the flaneur’s conversion into a commodity. Following the argument of Walter Benjamin, the present paper aims to analyze the mobility and transformation of the central character, Christopher, in Julian Barnes’s novel Metroland (1980). This paper also reinforces that the character’s transformation is influenced by the societal structures as propounded by the structural Marxists like  Louis Althusser.

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lunney

Cities and nature may seem mutually exclusive, but the animal inhabitants, both native and introduced, from pets to pests, are a major component of city life. Using Sydney as an example, this paper takes a critical look at cities and nature, more narrowly zoology, with a long-term view, i.e. one with intergenerational equity in mind. In the rapid conversion of bush to farmland, then suburbs and industrial areas, flora and fauna have not been given a strong voice. We need a new ethic for this new urban ecosystem, one which encompasses dealing with exotic species, pests and vermin on the one hand, and relic native animal populations on the other. Plans for sustainability in environment, economics and society need to recognise that these are interrelated subjects, not separate entities. I argue that knowing the natural history of Sydney is integral to understanding the city, its history, and its sustainability.


Kulturstudier ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Bjørn Omel Risom ◽  
Camilla Mordhorst

<p><strong>Dog shit, cigarette butts and pizza boxes</strong></p> <p>The garbage found on city streets reflects the consumption patterns of a city and its street life. At one time, horse droppings were left in the streets of Copenhagen, and no one seemed to take any notice. The waste from the horses was considered to be an unavoidable part of city life. The malodorous stench coming from the filthy gutters and the sewage created by craftsmen and shopkeepers, however, were cause for complaint. Today, a few greasy discarded pizza boxes can lead to major campaigns, and fag butts have become more and more visible as garbage, despite the fact that fewer of them are being tossed on the streets.</p> <p>The garbage on Copenhagen’s streets and the municipality’s different strategies to handle it suggest that the concept of “street garbage” is difficult to grasp. There is no obvious connection between the street garbage that a citizen finds problematic and the amount of the garbage that is actually found on the street. Some types of street garbage are considered to be more disgusting or morally troublesome than others. The city’s campaigns against street garbage and the way that garbage is categorised also contribute to people’s opinions. The Clean City campaigns (<em>Ren By kampagnerne</em>) that took place in 1987 are particularly interesting to analyse because, on the one hand, they reflect the city’s ongoing efforts to utilise new strategies to keep the city clean; on the other hand, these campaigns demonstrate how difficult it can be to manoeuvre between divergent political positions and ways of analyzing the problem while also considering economic priorities and changing cultural values.</p> <p>The city’s street garbage – no matter how practical and simple a problem it may seem to be – proves difficult for a city like Copenhagen to manage and find effective solutions for because the concept of “street garbage” is constantly changing, just like the everyday routines of the city’s residents and the city’s technological capabilities.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Ina Schabert

In this period the city of Rouen is known for commercial activity and for certain literary connections, but its status as a centre of sorts for English-French translation has gone unrecognized. This paper explores the writers involved (some well known, some less familiar), the rationales for their translations (particularly from the poetry of Alexander Pope), and their relation on the one hand to the commercial life of Rouen, on the other to its Académie Royale, founded in 1744.


Author(s):  
Fátima Valenzuela ◽  
Fernando Pozzaglio

En este artículo nos proponemos explorar el fondo judicial del Archivo General de la Provincia de Corrientes. Por un lado, desarrollaremos un catálogo de las causas judicializadas entre 1612 y 1680, es decir, un instrumento descriptivo que puede ser utilizado por historiadores y/usuarios del archivo. Por otro lado, caracterizaremos los pleitos que corresponden a los albores de la configuración de la ciudad de San Juan de Vera. En ese contexto, presentaremos  una primera lectura en torno al funcionamiento de la justicia ordinaria y el accionar de otros funcionarios reales en el espacio colonial. De ese modo, lograremos una aproximación a los discursos y experiencias por medio de las causas judiciales. In this article we propose to explore the judicial fund of the General Archive of the Province of Corrientes. On the one hand, we will develop a catalog of judicial cases between 1612 and 1680, that is, a descriptive instrument that can be used by other historians and users of the archive. On the other hand, we characterize the lawsuits that took place at the dawn of the configuration of the city of San Juan de Vera. In this context, we will develop a first reading about the operation of ordinary justice and the action of other royal officials in the colonial space. In this way, we get an approximation to discourses and experiences through judicial cases.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Lopes

&lt;p&gt;The city of &amp;#201;vora, a World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO in 1986, also owes this recognition to the stones that built its monuments and preserve them until today.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This work brings together the contributions that we have gathered over the past three decades and allow us to have a very complete idea, not only about the materials used in the hundreds of monuments and historic buildings but also about their provenance. If some materials are so emblematic that they allow an immediate identification with the naked eye, others needed more sophisticated and precise techniques so that there was no doubt about their origin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The igneous rocks and gneisses of granite composition are part of the &amp;#8220;Massif of &amp;#201;vora&amp;#8221; on which the city is built. Thus, and quite naturally they are by far the most represented group in monuments from all historical periods. Its function is essentially structural, but there are also functional, ornamental and decorative objects. For example, the oldest megalithic structures found in the vicinity of the city are made up of large granite blocks that often had to be transported to their locations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, many gargoyles and statues that decorate the churches are also made up of these granite rocks. On these, the natural erosion of centuries of exposure to the environment has led to a state of alteration, sometimes very accentuated, which would justify its replacement by replicas sculpted in similar rocks. Provenance studies have made it possible to identify old quarries in the vicinity of the city where, on the one hand, the ancient rock extraction techniques can be observed and on the other hand, they allow the obtaining of the raw material necessary for these restoration and conservation works. In any case, they are places that need to be inventoried and protected, with the municipality already aware of their existence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As well as the monuments of the Roman Period, also the structures of the Medieval Period, such as the city walls, the Cathedral (started to be built in 1186 AD) and all the great churches, were also built with these granitoids.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In addition to these rocks, many others of multiple varieties and origins are present. The marbles, especially the Estremoz Marbles (Global Heritage Stone Resource), are ubiquitous in the city, but there are also emblematic marbles from other places, some easily identifiable (ie Viana do Alentejo, Escoural, Trigaches, Serpa and Vila Verde de Ficalho, for presenting mineralogy, textures, colors and patterns which, together with more recent analytical techniques, have confirmed its provenance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sedimentary rocks, with emphasis on Portuguese Mesozoic limestones, ie Lioz - GHSR and Brecha da Arr&amp;#225;bida - GHSR candidate, among others more rare and with very specific use in ornamental details, are also present and contribute to enrich a heritage in stone that makes this city so special and very popular with tourists of all nationalities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Acknowledgments: the authors thank to FCT for funding the ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2019), as well as COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690.&lt;/p&gt;


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 663
Author(s):  
Martha De Alba

En el presente artículo se estudia el imaginario urbano de la Ciudad de México valiéndose de la comparación de la perspectiva de una muestra de residentes del Distrito Federal con otra muestra de funcionarios encargados de la gestión de la metrópoli. Se parte del supuesto de que las imágenes que esta gran ciudad suscita corresponden a dos registros distintos: por un lado la experiencia urbana captada a través del discurso sobre la ciudad y por el otro las imágenes cartográficas que se materializan en mapas cognitivos del espacio. Se presentan aquí los resultados de estas dos perspectivas complementarias de análisis de las representaciones de la ciudad y se propone una metodología para su estudio. Asimismo se analiza si la vivencia y la representación de la ciudad corresponden a las propuestas teóricas que plantean que la metrópoli contemporánea ya no es más un lugar de convivencia, sociabilidad e identidad, sino que se ha convertido en un espacio únicamente funcional. AbstractThis article studies the urban imagination in Mexico City, using the comparison of the perspective of a sample of residents from the Federal District with another sample of functionaries in charge of managing the metropolis. It begins with the assumption that the images this great city evokes correspond to two different registers: on the one hand, the urban experience recorded through the discourse on the city and on the other, the cartographic images materialized in cognitive maps of space. This article presents the results of these two complementary methods of analyzing the representations of the city and proposes a methodology for studying them. It also analyzes whether the experience and the representation of the city correspond to the theoretical proposals suggesting that the contemporary metropolis is no longer a place of coexistence, sociability and identity but has become a purely functional space.


Author(s):  
Stephan F. De Beer

This article reflects on the unfinished task of liberation – as expressed in issues of land – and drawing from the work of Franz Fanon and the Durban-based social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission statement of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, as well as the Capital Cities Research Project based in the same university. Reflecting on the ‘living death’ of millions of landless people on the one hand, and the privatisation of liberation on the other, it argues that a liberating praxis of engagement remains a necessity in order to break the violent silences that perpetuate exclusion.


Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (S1) ◽  
pp. S51-S71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Malefakis

AbstractFor a group of Wayao street vendors in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, kinship relations were simultaneously an advantage and a hindrance. Their migration to the city and entry into the urban economy had occurred along ethnic and kinship lines. But, as they perceived the socially heterogeneous environment of the city that potentially offered them opportunities to cooperate with people from different social or ethnic backgrounds, they experienced their continuing dependency on their relatives as a form of confinement. Against the backdrop of the city, the Wayao perceived their social relations as being burdened with an inescapable sameness that made it impossible to trust one another. Mistrust, contempt and mutual suspicion were the flip side of close social relations and culminated in accusations ofuchawi(Swahili: witchcraft). However, these accusations did not have a disintegrative effect; paradoxically, their impact on social relations among the vendors was integrative. On the one hand,uchawiallegations expressed the claustrophobic feeling of stifling relations; on the other, they compelled the accused to adhere to a shared morality of egalitarian relations and exposed the feeling that the accused individual was worthy of scrutiny, indicating that relationships with him were of particular importance to others.


2009 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Marco Solimene

- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.


Author(s):  
James Costa Wilson

This chapter proposes a critical analysis of the types of discourse articulated by children involved in language revitalization programmes in two Western European contexts: Provence (south-eastern France) and southern Scotland. It focuses on how the minority language (Occitan and Scots) is described and what this means for how children categorize the language and speech communities within which they are being socialized. Of all the social actors involved in language revitalization programmes, and despite the central part they play, children are the only ones whose opinion on participation is never required. Children occupy a very ambiguous place in language revitalization movements. On the one hand, they are perceived as the embodiment of the future of the language, while, on the other hand, they are often accused of not speaking the language properly or of mixing minority and dominant languages. This seems to be a fairly widespread pattern in Europe, where ‘neo-speakers’ are generally viewed with mistrust.


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