The Changing Landscapes of Urban Apocalyptic (original) (raw)
Related papers
Writing Urban Nature: A Novel and Exegesis
Griffith Thesis Repository, 2016
This thesis is comprised of a novel and exegesis which explores how contemporary fiction can contribute to understandings of nature and culture, questioning oppositional dualisms and ultimately re-placing the human within nature. The exegesis discusses how fiction writers might engage with nature in their writing, by concentrating on the potential of urban environments – places where nature and culture co-exist. I argue that through fiction, writers can re-imagine cities in ways that extend contemporary ideas of place, nature, urban experience and ecologies
From Urban Nightmares to Dream Cities: Revealing the Apocalyptic Cityscape
: Constructions of Space V - Place, Space and Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean World // Editors: Gert T.M. Prinsloo and Christl M. Maier , 2013
[Pre-publication proofs - only cite from the published version please!] In this article I address a number of interrelated questions that illustrate the unique vision of “City” in apocalyptic thinking. The first part of the paper explores what makes a city a City and identifies specifically those elements that turn a conglomerate of physical constructions into a true built environment. With some insights from critical spatial theory in addition to the ancient Near Eastern and biblical image of the city functioning as guides, it will be shown that the pivotal elements consist of the material city, its inhabitants and its resident Deity. The intricate interaction between these three makes the city into a vibrant, living, organic whole. The second part of the paper asks what happens when one of these elements is eliminated and how that affects the others. Another question is whether any, and if so which, of these elements is vital to an enduring image of City. The paper proposes that the City constructs for its residents a lasting identity and that, reversely, the residents become the embodied City. It will further be demonstrated how Deity functions as the life-giving power source and that all these factors taken together transform the material city space into a mental space. These questions form an ongoing concern of many apocalyptic texts. It will be shown that the solution provided by these texts is rather surprising.
Urban and Natural Spaces in Dystopian Literature Depicted as Opposed Scenarios
2014
Most scholarly studied dystopias show that in dystopian literature the action takes place in urban space. Some authors, nonetheless, portray, together with an undesirable metropolis, an outer environment in which characters usually see features opposed to those of the city. This can be seen in some of the major titles included in the genre. The purpose of this research is to verify if this aspect is a recurrent element in the dystopian genre, first in a choice of well-known titles of the 20 th century and, secondly in some examples of dystopias published in the 21 st . Should it be the case, the need to analyze in which ways will arise, with the aim of setting up a theoretical description in order to undertake a further study on a wider range of texts of the genre. As they are parodies of actual totalitarian policies, they might shed some light on urban patterns that have had a reflection on literature and has turned into an influence.
The Empty Cities of Urban Apocalypse
Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture, ed. John Hay, 2020
This article explores a mise-en-scène familiar to us from postapocalyptic movies and video games: that of a future American city emptied of human life and activity. After tracing this chronotope back to early nineteenth-century European romantic fantasies of the “last man,” the article considers how it came to be applied, with variations, to American cities between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth. Examples include works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, and W. E. B. Du Bois as well as those by largely forgotten authors, and encompass utopian and apocalyptic fiction as well as dystopian and postapocalyptic. Critics have largely characterized such visions of urban desolation as a negative, cathartic expression of some fear, whether of ethnic others, natural disaster, or nuclear warfare. This chapter, however, will recover the productive possibilities they offered. Vacated cityscapes empowered readers to reflect critically upon modern urban life, in particular new phenomena such as skyscraper architecture, technological infrastructure, the experience of surging crowds and webs of social interdependency, the suppression of nature, the impermanence of urban space, and racial segregation.
The Urban Landscape, 2009
A short essay about the history of concepts related to the Urban Landscape.
Ecozon@, 2011
London is an urban and mythical entity that has exerted a power of attraction and repulsion upon the minds of travellers, writers and artists alike. Impressive not only by its size but also the scope of its variety and polymorphism, London is a genuine cultural environment of its own. Its past is sometimes overshadowed by the never-ending process of change, yet a close investigation helps to unveil hidden parts of a collective memory. Such has been the ambitious endeavour of Peter Ackroyd, Iain Sinclair and to a certain extent, Gilbert & George. Each of these authors has explored various aspects of London's memory, be it through the prism of cultural studies, psychogeography or contemporary art. In order to make sense of the urban explorations, Ackroyd, Sinclair and Gilbert & George had to elaborate specific tools so as to represent the urban experience in its entire disruptive dimension. London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd, Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital by Iain Sinclair and the 20 London E 1 Pictures by Gilbert & George epitomise various representations of urban experience as it is filtered through imagination. This experience reveals not only the very nature of the urban ecology but it also unveils fragile realms of memory. Indeed, walking the urban ecology gives access to an alternative past. If ecology designates an environment regulated by specific rules and mechanisms, what is the mechanism that regulates this urban ecology? Our aim is to demonstrate that dislocation is the main mechanism that informs both urban and fictional ecologies. Besides, the very nature of the relationship between the urban ecology and fictional ecologies prompts questions. How do they interact? Does the urban ecology challenge the artistic universes created by Peter Ackroyd, Iain Sinclair and Gilbert & George to the extent of dislocating them? Do the artistic works partake in the dislocation of the urban ecology? Besides, the semantics of the term "dislocation" leads us to ponder into two directions simultaneously. Indeed, is our understanding of the city of London simply dislocated , merely displaced, whenever we attempt at representing it? Or is it totally disrupted, meaning altered in its very nature by the works mentioned above? We may also reverse the elements of this interaction and wonder whether the works of these authors are being simply displaced, or utterly challenged in their very essence by the specificity of the urban ecology.