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Images of the City

Images of the City. Imagination, Representation, Juxtaposition, Criticism. Experience and imagination. Experience Five senses – which are preeminent? Lynch’s “city image” Focus on the “built environment” or on social interactions?

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Images of the City

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  1. Images of the City Imagination, Representation, Juxtaposition, Criticism

  2. Experience and imagination • Experience • Five senses – which are preeminent? • Lynch’s “city image” • Focus on the “built environment” or on social interactions? • Juxtapositions (large v. small, rich v. poor, nature v. buildings) • Story-telling • Journalism • Fiction • Condemnation and critique (“sin city”) • Imagination • Visual – painting, photography • Cinematic – “urban narrative and visual representation” • Music – from the city, of the city, about the city The City and Citizenship

  3. Describing the City • Journalism • Investigative journalism • exposes of politics, poverty, etc. • Jacob Riis: “How the Other Half Lives” • Upton Sinclair: “The Jungle” • Mike Royko: “Boss” • “portraits” of neighborhoods • “In the Loop” (in Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine) • Neighborhood blogs, e.g. Brooklyn’s Brownstoner or Hyde Park on “Outside In” • Fiction • Urban settings and urban problems • Crime and sin (drugs, prostitution) • Wealth and poverty (juxtaposed) • Violence and conflict (gangs, strikes, riots, revolutions) • The “city” as an entity • Noir crime dramas (L.A. , New York, New Orleans) • Science fiction (e.g. Dhalgren) The City and Citizenship

  4. Condemning the City • Buruma and Margalit • Attack on World Trade Center • Aimed at U.S., American dominance, global capitalism, the West • But, also at “the city” • More specifically, “cities given to commerce and pleasure instead of religious worship” (138) • Not just a reaction of fundamentalist Islamists • “whore of Babylon” • “internal” criticisms of modern cities • Juxtaposition of pleasure and commerce • Cities are centers of entertainment, shopping • Places to “escape” small-town strictures • Symbolic centrality of sex trade • City as “zoo of depraved animals” • “city slickers” are flashy, deceptive, cold The City and Citizenship

  5. Stout: Visions of a New Reality • The city in painting - impressionism • Impressionists examined city, not just countryside • GustaveCaillebotte • Claude Monet • Social realism (Ashcan School) • Edward Hopper • John Sloan • Photography • Alfred Stieglitz • Aerial photography • Amateur photography The City and Citizenship

  6. The City in Cinema and Music • Cinematic Visions • Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) • Metropolis (Fritz Lang) • Manhattan (Woody Allen) • Music (Videos) • Bourgeois Blues (Leadbelly) • Downtown (Petula Clark) • Summer in the City (Lovin’ Spoonful) • In the City (The Eagles, from the movie “The Warriors”) • City of Angels (Ozomatli) • My City of Ruins (Bruce Springsteen) • Other (pop) music about cities • “My City Was Gone” (The Pretenders) • “Bad Luck City” (R.L. Burnside) • “Living for the City” (Stevie Wonder) • “Motor City Is Burning” (MC5) • “Sin City” (Gram Parsons) • And, of course “Cities” (Talking Heads) The City and Citizenship

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