Urban Space and Representation

Theories of urban space have become the focus of a great deal of work by scholars in cultural geography, urban studies and critical theory. This volume contributes to that debate by analysing the relationship between theories of urban space and literary and visual representations of the city – an emergent area of confluence in literary, film and cultural studies. The contributors address themes such as visual culture and spectacle; class and capital; community and public space; and nation, diaspora and belonging. Cities covered include New York, Chicago, Jerusalem, Paris, London, Birmingham and Freetown, Sierra Leone. Artists and writers discussed include Piet Mondrian, Nella Larsen, Rudolph Fisher, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Sarah Schulman, Jonathan Larsen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Paul Auster and Wayne Wang.

An innovative and interdisciplinary collection of new work on the forms and meanings of the modern city in literary, film and cultural studies.

Maria Balshaw is a research fellow in American Literature at the University of Birmingham and the author of City of Refuge : Race, Urban Space and Twentieth-Century African American Literature (Pluto Press, forthcoming). Liam Kennedy is a senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Birmingham.