Cities and Literature (Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City) - Softcover

Miles, Malcolm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1138219533 ISBN 13: 9781138219533

Publisher: Routledge, 2018

Synopsis

This book offers a critical introduction to the relation between cities and literature (fiction, poetry and literary criticism) from the late eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. It examines examples of writing from Europe, North America and post-colonial countries, juxtaposed with key ideas from urban cultural and critical theories.

Cities and Literature shows how literature frames real and imagined constructs and experiences of cities. Arranged thematically each chapter offers a narrative which introduces a number of key thinkers and writers whose vision illuminates the prevailing idea of the city at the time. The themes are extended or challenged by boxed cases of specific texts or images accompanied by short critical commentaries; the structure provides readers with a map of the terrain enabling connections across time and place within manageable limits, and offers elements of critical discussion to serve a growing number of university courses which involve the intersections of cities and literature.

This volume offers access to literature from an urban perspective for the social sciences, and access to urbanism from a literary viewpoint. It is an excellent resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of urban studies and English literature, planning, cultural and human geographies, architecture, cultural studies and cultural policy.

About this title

About the Author

Malcolm Miles is a researcher and writer on critical theories of culture and society, urbanism and contemporary art. Among his publications are Cities and Culture (2007), Limits to Culture (2015), Eco-Aesthetics: art, literature and architecture in a period of climate change (2014) and Herbert Marcuse: an aesthetics of liberation (2011). He retired as Professor of Cultural Theory in the Architecture School, University of Plymouth, UK, in 2016.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138219533
• ISBN 13: 9781138219533
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240