This book explores urban life and realities in the cities of the Global South and North. Through literature, film and other forms of media that constitute shared social imaginaries, the essays in the volume interrogate the modes of production that make up the fabric of urban spaces and the lives of their inhabitants. They also rethink practices that engender 'cityness' in diverse but increasingly interlinked conglomerations.
Probing 'orientations' of and within major urban spaces of the South -Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, Tijuana, Delhi, Kolkata, Luanda and Johannesburg -the book reveals the shared dynamics of urbanity built on and through the ruins of imperialism, Cold War geopolitics, global neoliberalism and the recent resurgence of nationalism. Completing a kind of arc, the volume then turns to cities located in the North such as Paris, Munich, Dresden, London and New York to map their coordinates in relation to the South.
The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of media and culture studies, city studies, development studies, Global South studies, urban geography, built environment and literature.
Über den Autor Kerry (Hrsg.) Bystrom
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Kerry Bystrom is an Associate Professor of English and Human Rights and Associate Dean of the College at Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University. Previous publications include Democracy at Home in South Africa: Family Fictions and Transitional Culture (2016).Monica Popescu is an Associate Professor of English and William Dawson Scholar of African Literatures at McGill University. She is the author of South African Literature Beyond the Cold War (which won the 2012 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities) and At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies and the Cold War (2020).Katherine Zien is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at McGill University. Zien's 2017 book is Sovereign Acts: Performing Race, Space, and Belonging in Panama and the Canal Zone. Her current project, supported by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, explores militarization and performance in Latin America's Cold War.
