The Time of the City Politics, philosophy and genre [Paperback]

The Time of the Cityis a trans-disciplinary work with a focus on genre-city relationships as they articulate the micropolitics of urban life in diverse cities. Shifting the territorial emphasis of political studies from the mosaic of states to the global network of cities, the book draws on urban theory rather than traditional forms of official city politics. Deriving their methodological approaches from aspects of urban theory and philosophies of aesthetics, the chapters deploy concepts from philosophy, political theory, literary studies, cinema studies, poetics and aesthetic theory on diverse cities, among which are Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

Investigating a wide variety of urban formations, and developing a geophilosophy appropriate to urban space, this multi genre approach to urban life provides stunning insights into the micropolitics of ethnicity, identity, security, subjectivity and sovereignty.

1. Introduction: Geophilosophy, Aesthetics, and the City  2. The Now Time(s) of the GlobalCity:Displacing Hegel's Geopolitical Narrative  3. Managing Urban Security: City Walls and Policing Metis  4. Neo-Noir and Urban Domesticity: The Wachowski Brothers Bound  5. Gothic Philadelphia: Divided Subjects and Fractionated Assemblages  6. Bodies and the City: Washington DC  7. Walt Whitman and the Ethnopoetics of New York  8. Inter-City Cinema: Hong Kong at the Berlinale

There are few political thinkers writing today who can bear the burden of breadth that an aesthetically sensitive mode of political theorizing demands. Michael Shapiro is exemplary amongst them. In The Time of the City , Shapiros bold bricolages take center stage by re-energizing our lethargic political methodologies and infusing them with a perspicuous attention to the aesthetic modes of associatlƒ+