The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City [Hardcover]

This book is about the impact of literature upon cities world-wide, and cities upon literature. It examines why the city matters so much to contemporary critical theory, and why it has inspired so many forms of writing which have attempted to deal with its challenges to think about it and to represent it. Gathering together 40 contributors who look at different modes of writing and film-making in throughout the world, this handbook asks how the modern city has  engendered so much theoretical consideration, and looks at cities and their literature from China to Peru, from New York to Paris, from London to Kinshasa. It looks at some of the ways in which modern cities  whether capitals, shanty-towns, industrial or rust-belt  have forced themselves on peoples ways of thinking and writing.

Introduction and Acknowledgements.- Prologue: City-Theory and Writing in Paris and Chicago: Space, Gender, Ethnicity.- PART I. THE CITY IN THEORY.- Introduction.- 1. Modern Urban Theory and the Study of Literature; Jason Finch.- 2. Theorists of the Postmodern, Global, and Digital City; J. A. Smith.- 3. Walter Benjamin and The Arcades Project; Ben Moore.- 4. How did the Everyday Manage to become so Interesting?; Alfie Bown.- PART II. EUROPEAN CITIES.- Introduction.- 5. Dublin; Daniel Bristow.- 6. Medieval and Early Modern Cities: London, Paris, Florence, and Amsterdam; Jeremy Tambling.- 7. Modern London: 1820-2020; Jason Finch.- 8. Balzac: A Socio-Material Archaeology of Paris; Jonathan White.- 9. Berlin: Flesh and Stone, Space and Time; Ulrike Zitzlsperger.- 10. Petersburg on the Threshold; Paul Fung.- 11. St. Petersburg and Moscow in Twentieth-century Russian Literature; Isobel Palmer.- 12. Spains Literature of the City; Aitor Bikandi-Meijas and Paul Vita.- 13. Lisbon: What thl4