The New Ruralism [new book]

Henri Lefebvre did work in rural sociology before turning fully to urban matters (does the urban even exist ‘outside of’ the rural?)…

This new edited volume by Joan Ramon Resina and William R. Viestenz “The New Ruralism: An Epistemology of Transformed Space” seems to look at new stages in the dialectical relationship between the city and the country (mentioning Raymond Williams’ book by that title in its introduction) You can download the pdf of the introduction to The New Ruralism for free from the publisher’s site here.

Resina, Joan Ramon; Viestenz, William (eds.)

The New Ruralism: An Epistemology of Transformed Space.

Madrid / Frankfurt, 2012, Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 220 p., € 22.00

ISBN: 9788484896562

Presents new ways of understanding the old dichotomy city vs country in an effort to think through the epistemological and artistic implications of the modern antinomy’s demise, whereby the non-city ceases to be the city’s absolute other.

Zola’s The Squares: City, Country and Work

In the Introduction to Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille by Denis Hollier (trans. Betsy Wing; MIT 1989) there are some interesting remarks:

“In 1867, Emilie Zola, a young journalist, dedicated one of his articles to the upcoming inauguration of a public space. The piece is entitled ‘The Squares.’ It begins: ‘The gates to the new Parmentier square, built on the site of the former Popincourt slaughterhouse, will soon be opened to the public.’ Then come two pages of sarcasm directed at the absurdity of urban landscaping, where lawns try to recall nature for consumptive city dwellers. ‘It looks like a bit of nature that did something wrong and was put in prison.’ A square is not a museum, but it too is a place for soft expenditure, it is an enclave through whose gates Parisian workers escape the implacable law of labor: they take the air (regenerate their lungs just as do the museum visitors observed by Bataille). For lack of an animal they kill time.” (xv)

“Despite his sarcastic remarks about squares, a mere detail in Haussmann’s overall plan, Zola is vigorously in favor of the modernization of Paris. [...] In the modern city, the capital of the world of work, everyone is busy. Everything found there has its function, a physiological justification. [...] Zola is allergic to the squares because the city takes its rest there, or, more precisely, because these idleness preserves are urban. Not that Zola is opposed to stopping work (workers have a right to recreation), but he is opposed to this happening in the city. If one is not working one should leave.” (xvi)

Although I’ve read more of Chilean writer Baldomero Lillo and Spanish author Emilia Pardo Bazán (both influenced by Zola) than Zola himself, I was reminded of the role of the country in the French writer’s Germinal (a great read) where the forest serves as a safe space for organizing against the evils of mine-work. Given that nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century reactions unfolded against industrialization and mechanization rather than against urbanization proper (e.g. see Lewis Mumford), it makes sense to see authors of that time upholding such a strict city-country dichotomy instead of seeing (as some have suggested) capitalist industrialization as a first step toward capitalist urbanization (much easier in hindsight)–in both cases, of course, the city and the country are part of an evolving and dynamic relationship, which renders Zola’s view on squares somewhat humorous if not also absurd from today’s perspective.

“if one is not working one should leave”–I’m not sure how well this statement represents Zola’s view, but it certainly supports a reifying perspective on city and country that itself anticipates the post-war uneven development of leisure and work spaces taken on by Lefebvre (e.g. The Production of Space).

 

CFP–new Journal of Urban Cultural Studies launched

Visit the new Journal of Urban Cultural Studies site here.

Call for Papers

The Journal of Urban Cultural Studies is a new peer-reviewed publication cutting across both the humanities and the social sciences in order to better understand the culture(s) of cities. The journal is open to studies that deal with culture, urban spaces and forms of urbanized consciousness the world over.

Although we embrace a broad definition of urban cultural studies, we are particularly interested in submissions that give equal weight to: a) one or more aspects of urban studies (everyday life, built environment, architecture, city planning, identity formation, transportation…) and b) analysis of one or more specific forms of cultural/textual production (literature, film, graphic novels, music, art, graffiti, videogames, online or virtual space…) in relation to a given urban space or spaces.

Essays of 7,000-10,000 words (including works cited and notes) should be sent by attachment to the Editor at urbanculturalstudies@gmail.com. JUCS is also open to proposals of special issues by guest editors working individually or in teams of two. All citations in other languages should be translated into English for the journal’s international reading public, in addition to including the original text.

While the journal does not publish book reviews, we do publish review essays—which should discuss 3-5 recent books on a shared topic or theme (or place) and run from 2,500 to 4,000 words. Review essays of urban-themed installations or other works of art are also welcome. These essays will be reviewed in house. Given our visual focus, we are interested in original, unpublished artwork on the topic of cities and in publishing articles accompanied by images where appropriate.

We encourage a variety of approaches to the urban phenomenon—the strengths of the editorial board run from urban geography to literature and film, photography and videogames, gender and sexuality, creative economy, popular music, Marxist approaches, fashion, urban planning, anthropology, sociology, Deaf culture, built environment, philosophy, architecture, detective fiction and noir, and more…

To Live under an Illuminated Tent: The City Dark (2011)

I just watched the documentary by Ian Cheney titled “The City Dark” (2011)–> another interesting perspective on the city and culture–light/darkness. A few minutes in, Ian states that living in New York is like living under an illuminated tent. An astronomer at City College Staten Island says he never saw as much of the sky as when the northeast was experiencing a blackout; interviews with an astronaut, neurologist, Med. school scientist, cosmologist, lighting designer, and of course Neil deGrasse Tyson, who says that (by his own admission “it is a sickeningly urban thing to say” [my emphasis]) the real night sky he sees when on mountaintops at times reminds him of the planetarium he experienced as a kid. The city is clearly a center of light, of brightness, that has aided in changing the natural rhythms experienced by human beings on the earth, and perhaps even obscuring, alienating us from the sky (here Lefebvre’s work on daily life, capital’s effect on rhythms and the lot seems to me to be deeply relevant).

The Cultural Studies Question in 2012: Literature, Specialization, Interdisciplinarity

There are three interconnected points that constitute this brief post’s point of departure.

One: the conflict between what are called literary and cultural studies approaches persists—that it continues to influence the seemingly discrete areas of peer-reviewed scholarship, postsecondary hiring decisions, departmental debates over curriculum shifts, proposals to reassert a disciplinary canon, and perhaps even discussions regarding the futures of existing academic departments.

Two: the antagonists and agonists (to use Miguel de Unamuno’s term) of this conflict—at times it is not even clear who is who—often do not agree on the meanings of these terms. ‘Literature’ and ‘cultural studies’ operate simultaneously at several scales of academic discourse, from the local (departmental) to the disciplinary community (at conferences) to the wider publishing realm (articles, books, web); and it is likely that consensus is lacking both within and across each of these contexts.

Three: where pockets of consensus regarding these terms may in fact exist there is relatively little awareness of what is at stake in continuing to distinguish between ‘literature’ and ‘cultural studies.’ This leads, first, to an internal schism among potential disciplinary allies and departmental colleagues, and it may lead also—where the rifts are strongest—to what is, in effect, a devaluation of the humanities.

It is likely that if you are reading this, you are

Fear the Fixie

In today’s New York Times an opinion piece entitled  Now Coveted — A Walkable, Convenient Place by Richard Leinburger discussed the increasing real estate prices in urban and semi-urban areas due to the rising interest of people to live in walkable and bikeable communities (along with access to other amenities). The author writes that “this trend is about both the revitalization of center cities and the urbanization of the suburbs.” This line of course caught my eye and immediately brought to mind David Harvey’s (1989) “urbanization of consciousness” and Lefebvre and the notion of the urban as being a cultural-conceptual experience, and not merely just a descriptor of physical space. It is an article that dovetails with an interest in bikes and bike culture that I have been thinking about lately.

Here in Madrid the increase in the number of cyclists that I see now compared a previous experience living here in 2004 is dramatic. And my first visit in 2001 need barely be mentioned since urban cycling in Madrid, much less in Granada was a whisper at that time, to say the least

Amongst the many type of cyclists and ‘cycles that catch my eye  is the hipster skateboard otherwise known as the fixie. (Disclosure: I like bikes and until unloading one prior to this previous move the personal count was at 4. )

A fixed-gear bike has no dérailleur and hence only one gear. The clean line of the chain running smoothly over the rear cog with no slack in the system to allow for the movement between gears has its mechanical and aesthetic advantages. It looks simple and tends to be simple to maintain. Oh, and it bears mentioning that these bikes have no freewheel either, so no coasting. To stop, proficient riders become adept at skidding by putting force onto the pedal nearest the rear wheel and often laying out the bike to achieve a ski-turn type arc to bleed speed and or stop. You can see an example here.

Originally descended from fixed-gear track bikes used for professional- and Olympic-level competition and brought (as I understand it) to the urban masses by bike messengers from San Francisco and New York, these bikes have become immensely popular with the urban-hipster crowd for their DIY aesthetic, a subdued and supposedly unpretentious sense of cool, and their green politics. Often these bikes–so the aesthetic suggests–were cobbled together by scavenging parts at the local bike co-op, the playing cards in the spokes earned while at local alley-cat races (competitions usually held at night in which competitors traverse the city on a scavenger hunt/race and end up at pleasant social event at the end), the bullhorn handlebars scavenged from drop handlebars and chopped and flipped. The bikes themselves are pastiche–a mixture of recycled parts, high-end rims, vintage frames. Often the bikes look simple and low-key but sport a set of color coordinated wheels that can run a couple hundred dollars a piece.Here is an ad for a brand of custom fixed gear bike (Bike Ad). The DIY aesthetic has fallen to the wayside for the retail fixie trend.

After meandering through these descriptions, readers may wonder, why spend time talking about a seemingly obscure bike fashion on a blog devoted to urban cultural studies?

Well, it is not obscure since it is not just in Williamsburg or Portland where this is taking place. The fixed-gear and its lowly cousin the non-fixed single-speed, have become symbols of urban progressive youth. There are, of course, other bikes out there that people ride, but it is the single cog aesthetic that one sees displayed in the window of the Vans store on the calle Montera next to Gran Vía up the hill from the Puerta de Sol. As is always the case, the counter-culture has gone mainstream (think snowboarding fifteen years ago) and the Pabst-Blue Ribbon aesthetic of “fixie” hipster cool has begun to be subsumed into the urban machine. The surest sign that gentrification is on its way is the proliferation of the single-cog ride. And though I like fixed gear bikes for a variety of reasons and would rather see bikes be fashionable than SUVs, I can’t deny my creeping suspicion that we must fear the fixie for when it comes the lofts are sure to follow.

Gaia’s Street Art in Baltimore

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Following up on a post here (reblogged below)–that got me thinking more about the work of art (and a project I’m working on regarding Henri Lefebvre’s thoughts on what he calls ‘the work’ combined with his thoughts on alienation) and its potential, I looked more into the street artist Gaia’s work in Baltimore on Howard Street. Images that form part of the artist’s “legacy series” are above–large images of Robert Moses and James Rouse.

The artist states that ’I am calling this series Legacy and it is a very basic attempt to reinscribe the figures who have shaped our landscape back onto the surface of their legacy, the infrastructure and policies that we have inherited and must navigate.’

Images taken from: 
http://www.unurth.com/filter/Baltimore#ixzz1vt2t4qHj

It seems to me that art realizes its potential–Lefebvre talks about the “creative capacity” of the artist, by which he means something quite specific–when it “starts with experience,” and when it brings together what are normally seen as separate, fragmented areas of experience (social, political, economic, etc.). Only in this way can it serve a disalienating function. Gaia’s work is such a great example of what Lefebvre points out.

Lefebvre on Culture: Sleeping Beauty image

I’m working on a much larger project about Lefebvre and the humanities and came across this quotation embedded in a discussion of Marxism and aesthetic questions:

“It so happens that the word ‘culture’ also evokes a magical image for me, that of Sleeping Beauty. She does not doze on flowers and on fragrant grass but on a thick mattress of texts, quotations, musical scores—and under a vast canopy of books, sociological, semiological, historical and philosophical theses. Then one day the Prince comes; he awakens her and everything around the forest comes to life along with her—poets poetizing, musicians musicking, cooks cooking, lovers loving, and so on. Singers? Songs? Yes, they are a part of culture, yet they must not be considered in isolation but within an ensemble that also includes dance, music, cartoon strips, television, and so forth. Moreover, culture is not merely a static palimpsest of texs, it is lived, active, which is what the fable of the wakened princess suggests to me.”

Take it for what it’s worth, but what I like about this image is how it expresses Lefebvre’s central position on culture–which of course dispenses with the ‘base-superstructure’ model that people like to equate with Marxism more generally (and which Lefebvre contradicts head-on in the Critique of Everyday Life). Not merely do a variety of cultural products form a (complex) ensemble, they also spring to life in that very moment when “Sleeping Beauty’s” “sociological, semiological, historical and philosophical” knowledge is awakened (and not a second later).

Spain is Different: Sol and the Kilometer Zero

As a scholar of literature and culture with an interest in urban cultural studies, mutual (re)production of the material and the metaphoric is always of interest to me. On Saturday, the events associated with the first anniversary of the Indignado movement in the Puerta de Sol in Madrid began. They are scheduled to run through the night of the 15th with scheduled events occurring in both the Puerta de Sol itself as well as other smaller plazas around the city, around Spain, and, in fact, around the globe. Yesterday standing amongst the Indignados composed of young children, teenagers, university students, pensioners I reflected on how the metaphoric qualities of this space have been a part of its powerful presence in the cultural imaginary of activists in Spain and in other parts of the world.

“Esta noche el Sol va a salir” [Tonight the Sun will come out] read one of the banners carried by the crowd. The conflation of the physical place and its namesake natural phenomenon inserts a symbolic and poetic quality into the discourse that one just does not find in Zuccotti Park (for example). It is in Sol at the Kilometer Zero where this has happened, is happening; it is literally the official center of Spain. With the Real Casa de Correos as a backdrop the Indignados make reference to other hisotrical moments. It is from the balcony of this building where the Second Republic was declared. Its basement dungeons sequestered political prisoners. In this context, the flags of the Republic waving in the crowd gain greater significance.

Because May 15 is also the day of San Isidro, the patron saint of Madrid, this “Spanish Revolution” has an  associations with Madrid that cannot be forgotten. There were plans to tie global protests in London and other locations to this anniversary of #15M, as if to launch the start of “Occupy” season and inspire another summer and long autumn of protest and resistance. It is from Sol, perhaps, that these global circuits of resistance will find renewed energy.

The #15M movement is so highly embedded into the scale of the urban, but because of its metaphoric possibilities has soared into the popular imaginary across Spain and across the globe. After protests in London, in Wisconsin, in New York, in LA, in Oakland, and of course Tahrir Square, it is in Madrid where perhaps the Kilometer Zero of the Global Occupy Movement seems to have settled. As always, that old slogan from the Franco era seems to be relevant again: Spain is different. 

State, Space, World

I recently did a book review of State, Space, World, a collection of Henri Lefebvre’s work edited by Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (who blogs at Progressive Geographies).  The review is in Social & Cultural Geography 13(2), edited by my friend Michael Brown.  In the interest of promoting the book, which is great, I will just paste the review below, hoping the copyright militia doesn’t come after me…

Lefebvre, Henri. (2009) State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Edited by N. Brenner and S. Elden. Translated by G. Moore, N. Brenner and S. Elden. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. 330 pp. $28.50, paperback (ISBN 978-0-8166-5317-1)

Let me say this plainly: this is an excellent book. There two main reasons for this excellence.  The first is the enduring quality and originality of Lefebvre’s work, and the second is the evident abilities of the editors, Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden.  Both are important factors, but let me begin with the editors.  A significant element of the editors’ contribution is the translation of the works, for which they were joined by Gerald Moore.  Lefebvre’s writing is famous for not being well-wrought, at times scattered, elliptical, or even dashed-off.  In this book, the language is far more readable and transparent than it is in other translations, particularly the Writings on Cities book.  In addition, the translators have made very wise choices with difficult terms.  The best example of this is the term autogestion, which they leave untranslated.  As the book makes clear, this word is really a gateway to a complex argument about politics. Its standard translation, “self-management,” is nondescript in English.  Leaving it untranslated signals to the reader to be attentive to the term and to what it means.  Such attentiveness will open the door to new political worlds in Lefebvre.

In addition to the excellent translation, the editors’ introduction is extremely substantive, well-written, and makes an excellent guide to the theoretical contents of the book. Their scholarship is meticulous; this is clearly not a book that was rushed in any way. It is patiently crafted and is the work of serious scholars who care very deeply about the material they are working with.

As the title suggests, the editors have chosen to focus on Lefebvre’s work on the state, space, and world. This also includes quite a bit of Lefebvre’s theoretical work with respect to Marxism and philosophy. Of course with any selection things will be left out, and in this case the book mostly leaves to one side Lefebvre’s work on the critique of everyday life, rural sociology, the urban, history and time, and rhythmanalysis. This is fine of course, there’s no need to cover everything in Lefebvre’s corpus, but it’s worth noting what the book does not provide.

In terms of what is included, I think there are quite a few revelations here. The selections on the state are downright thrilling.  Lefebvre’s more well-known work tends to be abstract and politically oblique.  Here he is entirely direct.  The essays on the state in the first part of the book make clear Lefebvre’s deep commitment to a Leninist vision of the withering away of the state.  In a strident critique of Stalinism and the French Communist Party, he argues that the entire point of the proletariat seizing the state is to create the conditions for the state to wither away.  Of course this is paired with his Marxist conviction that capitalism must also wither away, and so we have in this book a very clear political agenda takes its cue unapologetically (though not uncritically) from The Communist Manifesto.

Very much related to this political agenda is the concept of autogestion.  The term is extraordinarily important for Lefebvre, though it has been subjected to relatively little attention in geography scholarship. It forms the basis of his understanding of politics and his hope for the future.  It also draws him toward an anarchist position, which is articulated with the Marxist-Leninist position on the state and capitalism into an exciting and complex political vision. Lefebvre imagines people reappropriating control over the conditions of their own existence, so that they create a world in which no one is governed by outside authority, a world in which power is no longer alienated from people to institutions like the state or the corporation, but remains with the people themselves. It prefigures Douglas Lummis’ (1997, p. 27) vision of radical democracy: “the people gathered in the public space, with neither the great paternal Leviathan nor the great maternal society standing over them, but only the empty sky­—the people making the power of Leviathan their own again, free to speak, to choose, to act.”  Lefebvre is very clear here: he is offering a vision for radical democracy.  It is easy to imagine how we can connect that larger political vision with Lefebvre’s writings on cities to imagine urban inhabitants reappropriating control over the production of urban space, a vision which helps us to more fully specify, and understand far more radically, the concept of the right to the city.[1]

In addition to this deeply radical and stimulating political vision, the second part of the book explores more familiar, though not unrelated, reflections on space, the politics of space, and planning. These are more “conventional,” in the sense that they echo or prefigure The Production of Space, which makes up the bulk of what geographers have already focused on in Lefebvre’s work.  This second part of the book also includes Lefebvre’s writing on the issue of the worldwide and the planetary, which is drawn from the work of Kostas Axelos. Lefebvre was remarkable in how he saw neoliberal globalization coming in advance of the actual fact.  And in many ways these discussions are a closer look at why he was capable of that prescience.  While I found these chapters less compelling than the relatively more political ones, I am certainly not ready to dismiss the importance of his ideas on the world and the worldwide either.

Overall then, I would say this book is not only required reading for anyone interested in Lefebvre, but it should be the starting point for those who want to engage his work on the state, politics, Marxism, and autogestion. Especially if it is paired with The Urban Revolution, I think this book is a powerful weapon in the struggle against the neoliberal city, and a source of great strength as we build another world.

References

Lummis, C. (1997) Radical democracy. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

Ranciere, J. (2009) The emancipated spectator. Translated by G. Elliott. New York, Verso.

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[1] Those who find this idea of reappropriation compelling should see Ranciere’s (2009) explicit critique of Guy Debord in The Emancipated Spectator.  Despite the many similarities between Debord’s vision and Lefebvre’s, though, Ranciere never mentions Lefebvre.