UrbanCulturalStudies Podcasts

Urban Cultural Studies is pleased to announce a podcast series!

UCS Podcasts feature conversational interviews with scholars publishing on topics related to Urban Cultural Studies. Clocking in at around 20-30 minutes each, each interview is inspired by a recent publication in the field–usually an article in a specialist journal. Each interview strives to go beyond the article’s contents to address a general audience interested in urban scholarship. Other podcast formats will be occasionally incorporated to complement the interviews.

Podcasts are available here, on Internet Archive, on the corresponding youtube channel, on iTunes, and also by direct subscription.

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

PODCAST EPISODES:

UCS 011 Schifani on Junk, Sprawl & Horizontal Networks in Buenos Aires (24 Nov. 2014) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Allison Schifani’s article “Alternative Sprawls, Junkcities: Buenos Aires Libre and Horizontal Urban Epistemologies,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.3, 2014). Based on interviews and research conducted in Buenos Aires in 2012, topics include political activism, the links between technology, society and urban sprawl and design, Buenos Aires Libre (BAL), Once Libre, the urban theory of Certeau and the junk-labor of the recyclable materials collectors known as the cartoneros. [LINK TO ORIGINAL PUBLISHER]

UCS 010 Feinberg on Theater, Labor and La Tabacalera in Madrid (17 Nov. 2014) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Matt Feinberg’s article “From cigarreras to indignados: Spectacles of scale in the CSA La Tabacalera of Lavapiés, Madrid,” published in the International Journal of Iberian Studies (26.1-2, 2013). Approached simultaneously at the urban, regional and national scales, topics include the interconnection between economy, labor, protest, culture, and selling urban space. Discussions also fold in notions of produced authenticity centering on the figure of the tobacco-rolling cigarrera, zarzuelas, and tourism during the Franco dictatorship.  [LINK TO ORIGINAL PUBLISHER]

UCS 009 Klausen on Urban Geocaching in Copenhagen (8 June 2014) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Maja Klausen’s article “Re-enchanting the city: Hybrid space, affect and playful performance in geocaching, a location-based mobile game,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.2, 2014). Based on ethnographic research conducted with geocaching players in Copenhagen, Denmark, topics range from a basic introduction to the theoretical underpinnings of geocaching, from the notion of the “magic circle” of play and the reinterpretation of urban spaces as enacted by players in specific urban sites. [LINK TO ORIGINAL PUBLISHER]

UCS 008 Masterson-Algar on Ecuadorians in Madrid’s Retiro Park (8 October 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Araceli Masterson-Algar’s article “Juggling Aesthetics and Surveillance in Paradise: Ecuadorians in Madrid’s Retiro Park,” published in the International Journal of Iberian Studies (26.1-2, 2013). Mixing ethnography on the ground with Ecuadorian immigrants to Madrid with cultural analysis and discussion of urban planning, topics range from urban parks (the Retiro Park [the section known as La Chopera now home to the 11-M memorial and Forest of Memory], the Casa de Campo…) to Manuel Delgado’s urban anthropology and the dynamics of migration as tied to urban processes of tourism and capital accumulation. [LINK TO ORIGINAL PUBLISHER]

UCS 007 Jefferson on Walcott’s Poetics of Caribbean Colonial Modernity (Castries / Port of Spain) (15 September 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Ben Jefferson’s article “New Jerusalems: Derek Walcott’s poetics of the Caribbean city,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.2, 2014). Topics range from readings/analyses of specific excerpts of poems written by celebrated poet Walcott (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1992) to the ideas of Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Henri Lefebvre, V. S. Naipaul, North American and European city planning traditions and the relationship between rural and urban space specific to Caribbean modernity. [LINK TO ORIGINAL PUBLISHER]

UCS 006 Afinoguénova on Public Protest and the Prado Promenade in Madrid, 1760-1939 (18 August 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Eugenia Afinoguénova’s article “Liberty at the Merry-Go-Round: Leisure, Politics, and Municipal Authority on the Paseo del Prado in Madrid, 1760-1939,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.1, 2013). Topics range from the contemporary Occupy movements and 15-M in Spain to the historical legacy of the Prado Promenade and the popular festivals known as verbenas – discussion centers on the relationship between city authority and state authority, commerce and public assembly. [LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

UCS 005 Kooistra on Prostitution in Hollywood/Los Angeles: Films, Novels and the Courts (13 August 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar AnneMarie Kooistra‘s article “The Harlot City?: Prostitution in Hollywood, 1920-1940,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.1, 2013). Drawing on the titular nickname introduced by Carey McWilliams in 1927, topics range from specific films, novels and the famed ‘Love-Mart’ case of alleged ‘Hollywood madam’ Olive Clark Day to the theories of geographers Mike Davis/Edward Soja and historian Sharon Ullman–in exploration of the city’s modern urban sexual economy. [LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

UCS 004 Lamb on Parkour, Architecture and the Body (12 August 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Matthew Lamb‘s article “Misuse of The Monument: The Art of Parkour and the Discursive Limits of a Disciplinary Architecture,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.1, 2013). Pitched at a theoretical level (complementing the specific place-bound analysis of  Monument Circle in Indianapolis found in the article) discussion centers on the origins (and varieties) of parkour–an athletic engagement with the built environment (misuse through climbing, dropping, vaulting, jumping…)–and the conditioning of the body in place and as subject to architectural and urban forces. [LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

UCS 003 Fraser on Antonio López García’s Everyday Urban Worlds: A Philosophy of Painting (6 August 2013) [BOOK TEASER] The author reads a concise draft introduction for a book in progress on the famed Spanish painter. Topics include art history, other Spanish painters (from Velázquez to Goya to Picasso, Dalí, Gris and Miró), Madrid’s urban space, temporality, and the book’s structure and interdisciplinary method (incorporating urban studies, geography, architecture, literature, cinema and more…). Born in Tomelloso in 1936, López García is an internationally recognized ‘hyperrealist’ painter, and in recent years his work Madrid desde Torres Blancas set an auction record at Christie’s for the sale of a work by a living Spanish artist.

UCS 002 Thornbury on Trains, Gender, and Fictional Characters in Tokyo (3 August 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Barbara Thornbury‘s article “Tokyo, Gender, and Mobility: Tracking Fictional Characters on Real Monorails, Trains, Subways, and Trams,” published in the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (1.1, 2013). Focusing on “My Slightly Crooked Brooch” by Noboru Tsujihara,  other prose works and films discussed include Real World (Natsuo Kirino), The Thief (Fuminori Nakamura), “Newlywed” (Banana Yoshimoto), Train Man (Shosuke Murakami), and Café Lumière (Hsiao-Hsien Hou). [LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

UCS 001 Vilaseca on Street Art in Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao, Spain (28 June 2013) Conversational interview inspired by scholar Stephen Vilaseca‘s recent article “From Graffiti to Street Art: How Urban Artists Are Democratizing Spanish City Centers and Streets,” originally published in the journal Transitions: Journal of Franco-Iberian Studies (8, 2012). Topics include: public space, graffiti vs. street art, artists Escif, Frágil and Dr. Case, Valencia, Bilbao, and Barcelona. [LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE]

UCS 000 [TEST]: UCS Podcast INTRO & OUTRO (26 June 2013)