My name is Damian Romero. I am a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Arizona with a strong focus on corpus linguistics and natural language processing. My research interests lay in the fields of computational social sciences and digital humanities. I also build applications that help companies process natural language data. Click on my picture for my full profile where you will find my website, student profile, and my professional FaceBook account.
Among the things discussed in the show were the differences between food critics and food writers, the lack of diversity in restaurant criticism, the democratization of restaurant reviews sparkled by the internet, why should universal design and cultural appreciation be part of a restaurant critic and/or review, and why is it important to have diversity among food critics.
“You have a lot of people who write about food who have the ability to pay for the $100 or $200 meal … Should only rich people have access to eat and write about the food?”@DiningTraveler on the barriers to entry of food writing. https://t.co/bcUSGEHOgZ
The conversation revolves around the benefit that diverse race and ethnicity bring to the table when evaluating a restaurant. Underlying the discussion is always present the unspoken fact that food critics are not perfect and, for that reason they can also not give a perfect evaluation of a restaurant or a dish. As objective as a critic may be, there is always going to be a filter depending on that person’s previous experiences and conceptions of particular foods and restaurants/ These conceptions are directly affected and molded by factors such as race, ethnicity, disabilities, social class, among others and it is naïve to thing that having a professional training will eliminate all those bias, especially when food critics have such different experiences at restaurants depending on, among other things, their skin color. This is specially true when critics evaluate things like service at a restaurant. I think this is a valuable discussion for any type of evaluation that involves the possibility of human bias (notice that this also applies to Machine Learning and AI evaluations based on human-generated data). Definitely a very interesting show which I fully recommend.
You can read the show notes and transcription here and listen to the piece here directly from your web browser..
Cities for coyotes? We also have coyotes and other interesting wild fauna in Arizona. This makes me think about Timothy Morton’s Dark Ecology all over again. Great blog post from https://inhabitingtheanthropocene.com/
This guest-edited issue of On_Culture focuses on migration, one of the most pressing issues that contemporary societies currently face. The lived reality of migration is fundamentally framed by discourse formations, where metaphors can function as creative devices to establish a reality of what migration could or even should mean. Seen from this perspective migration and imagination are closely tied as two subjects of central interest and core concern in both the Humanities and the Social Sciences.
Although at a first gaze both topics seem to be quite unconnected, “migration” playing a central part of current research in the Social Sciences, “imagination” being traditionally discussed in the humanities and arts, obviously both fields are strongly related to each other. Both, the social perception and the political discourse about migration, but also its very practice from refugees to modern nomads, refers to and stems from particular forms and techniques of imagination through which migration is approached and labeled as social reality. The “ways of worldmaking” (N. Goodman) as much as “society as an imaginary institution” (C. Castoriadis) speak to what has become the social reality of migration on a global scale. We will not be able to understand the processes and phenomena of migration accurately without acknowledging that, although it is a real problem, which often yields tragic consequences, migration is nurtured by tropes of imagination. More than other subjects today, migration seems to fill a gap in the production of cultural meaning and socio-political imagination. Thus the phenomenon of migration should accordingly be analyzed as depending on social practices and imaginations, which eventually equip the political discourse with cultural meaning and provoke demands for particular forms of management.
The cultural perception of processes of migration is massively communicated by the use of metaphors by which migration as a distinct phenomenon is embedded into a particular frame of cultural codes and meaning. The cultural poetics of metaphors as social practice help to identify migration as something which is distinct part of an as normative as coherent Weltbild. At the same time, the social perception and construction of a social reality of migration massively refer to practices of cultural imagination. Migration as a phenomenon clearly connects to a long standing history of cultural memorization that is, in large parts, laden with imaginative topoi. That way, migration as cultural imago refers to figures in mythology, prose, ideology, etc. The reality of migration within society is only emerging within the frames of performative cultural practices of imagination in various ways.
Migrating plants, animals, and people are subject of massive restrictions and, if successful by migration, often object of campaigns and activism with the aim to reverse this process. Also, we can observe the migration of ideas, images, or art—all of which unfolding massive influence on possible transformations of a seemingly given social and cultural reality. Capital is as much migrating—legally as illegally—as objects ranging from food to weaponry with often enormous consequences for their destination societies. Eventually, abstract threats to the life of humans and others are constantly migrating—bacteria, virus, disease, radio activity, etc. In the digital realm, migration seems to be an illusion when any website only seems to be one click away.
If migration is pointing to social practices of imagination as genuine social practices, migration cannot separate notions of disturbance and disruption, practices of othering, and exclusion, or assimilation from forms of signification and any crisis of ‘making sense’. Adequate understanding of migration therefore warrants interdisciplinary collaboration within the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Competences from philology and literature studies, art history, philosophy, media studies, etc., must be taken into account alongside with the expertise from sociology, political science, anthropology, criminology, and psychology.
If you are interested in having a peer reviewed academic article featured in this issue of On_Culture, please submit an abstract of 300 words with the article title, 5-6 keywords, and a short biographical note to content@on-culture.org (subject line “Abstract Submission Issue 10”) no later than February 28, 2020. You will be notified by March 15, 2020 whether your paper proposal has been accepted. The final date for full paper submissions is June 15, 2020.
Please note: On_Culturealso features a section devoted to shorter, creative pieces pertaining to each issue topic. These can be interviews, essays, opinion pieces, reviews of exhibitions, analyses of cultural artifacts and events, photo galleries, videos, works of art … and more! These contributions are uploaded on a rolling basis, also to previous issues. Interested in contributing? Send your ideas to the Editorial Team at any time: content@on-culture.org
AboutOn_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture
On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture(ISSN: 2366-4142) is a biannual, peer-reviewed academic e-journal edited by doctoral researchers, postdocs, and professors working at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. It provides a forum reflecting on the study of culture. It investigates, problematizes, and develops key concepts and methods in the field by means of a collaborative and collective process. On_Culture is dedicated to fostering such engagements as well as the cultural dynamics at work in thinking about and reflecting on culture.
The journal consists of three sections: peer-reviewed academic _Articles, _Essays, and the aforementioned _Perspectives. On_Culture brings new approaches and emerging topics to the (trans)national study of culture ‘on the line’ and, in so doing, fills the gap ____ between ‘on’ and ‘culture.’ There are numerous ways of filling the gap, and a plurality of approaches is something for which the journal strives with each new issue.Please note: as a commitment to the open access to scholarship, On_Culturedoes not charge any Article Processing Charges (APCs) for the publication of your contribution!
An interesting topic in today’s world is the influence that large corporations have in urban areas. Amazon is present in many locations around the world. Amazon jobs were advertised: 210 at the time of writing. Mostly (if not all) are cities. Recently, the Kojo Nnadmi show featured this week its piece on Arlington called Amazon’s $20 Million Housing Deal. It talks about the pros and cons of Amazon’s presence in this city and how inevitably Amazon is changing some of the fundamental components of its makeup. A very interesting topic, indeed.
“This film is an urban, modern fairy tale about destiny and resilience; it tells us that to change things, we must surprise ourselves, dare do something unusual, stray away from the straight and narrow.” – Jérémy Clapin for La Semaine de la Critique
Two weeks ago in the US, Netflix released the critically-acclaimed movie J’ai perdu mon corps (“I Lost My Body”). It is the story of an animated hand that makes its way through the streets, subways, and rooftops of the 1990’s Paris all the while dreaming/remembering of its previous life with its body. At its core, it is a movie of contrasts: youth and death, love and heartbreak, fear and wonder. The movie was directed by Jérémy Clapin and written by Jérémy Clapin and Guillaume Laurant (Amélie). According to the director, it is “loosely” based on the novel “Happy Hand” by Guillaume Laurant
What most impressed me of this movie is the way that urban space is represented. The whole city acquires a different, more dangerous (and marvelous) presence when viewed from the hand’s perspective. The hand, in order to complete its journey, must remain unseen and avoid the many challenges that the metropolis poses. In order to do this, the hand has to be fast, stealthy, and even athletic. In this sense, urban space is an essential component of the movie.
Back in May this year after its premiere, the movie won the Nespresso Prize (The Critics’ Week Grand Prix) and it has been acclaimed ever since. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 97% score in the tomatometer. I recommend it to everyone. Here is the official trailer:
“Anyone who’s willing to meet this movie on its own terms and roll with the dream logic it requires will be rewarded with a resonantly cathartic saga.” – David Ehrlich, indieWire
Resources
If you want to read a more about the movie, I recommend this article from Polygon.com.
On a side note, while I was unable to find for you an electronic version of The Jaguar House, in Shadow referenced in Dr. Collins’ entry, I learned that the same author, Aliette de Bodard won a Nebula award for best novella. Here are some powerful words from her (you can visit her website and blog here: https://aliettedebodard.com/):
“The truth, of course, is that writing matters. It is frivolous, it is self-indulgent, but it is also necessary. It is breathing space and act of resistance and escapism on my own terms. Stories shaped me as a child and continue to shape me as an adult. And it is a great and potent reminder of how far this particular one has gone to be accepting this award, now.”
Tlatelolco Marketplace, Wikimedia, Joe Ravi, Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0
There’s an interesting piece in this year’s Nebula Awards Showcase, a lively short story about an alternative future premised on Aztec culture, “The Jaguar House, in Shadow,” by Aliette de Bodard. One of the biggest challenges to those of us trying to imagine and evoke alternative futures is precisely what animates de Bodard’s story: can we come up with futures that aren’t already colonized by Western modernity? As she writes (185):
“Part of the challenge (and what had frustrated me with the earlier attempt) is making sure that “modern” doesn’t end up equating “twentieth-century Western culture”; and equally making sure that the Aztec culture doesn’t turn out to be an ossified version of what the conquistadors saw.” De Bodard struggles with this premise, ultimately sketching a future Tenochtitlan that is at turns archaeological speculation and Aztec steampunk. Maglev stations, nanotechnology…
As part of its Concrete Week campaign, The Guardian published an article on March this year titled Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth. The article refers to the U.S., Japan, China, and Brazil as study cases relating the production of concrete with environmental, political, and economic issues we currently face all over the world. The article recognizes human activity as the driving force behind the global impact on landscapes, nature, and the environment.
“Chatham House predicts urbanisation, population growth and economic development will push global cement production from 4 to 5bn tonnes a year. If developing countries expand their infrastructure to current average global levels, the construction sector will emit 470 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050, according to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.” – The Guardian
During the holidays, I will be visiting the city of Oaxaca de Juárez. In addition to visiting touristic places close to the city such as Hierve el Agua, El Árbol del Tule and the archeological sites of Monte Albán and Mitla, I also plan to systematically document the linguistic landscape of downtown Oaxaca. This is a project that I am most eager to start because one way of understanding the essence of a city is through the linguistic signs displayed on its public domain. Oaxaca City is a place where several cultures interact and this diversity is present in a mirad of cultural artifacts, including the presence of English.
A previous research paper by Sayer [2] analyzed the potential of harnessing linguistic landscape methodology. In his analysis of the uses of English in public displays around Oaxaca City, he discovered six different ways in which people in Oaxaca City used English to convey messages related to:
Advance and sophistication
Fashion
Being cool
Sex(y)(ness)
Expressions of love
Expressing subversive identities
According to my quick search on Google Maps, downtown Oaxaca has an extension of approximately 1.6 by 1.4 kms (around 1 x 0.9 miles), and it is comprised by some 180 blocks (15 x 12) for a total length of 24 kms. I am pretty sure that if I walk 5 kilometers per day, I will be able to document the whole downtown area in five days time. However, I need to remember to save some energy for all of the things I want to do in Oaxaca. Here is a small list of places one can visit around the city:
Andador Macedonio Alcalá
Ex Convento Betlemitas
Ex Convento de la Soledad
Iglesia de San Agustín
Iglesia del Carmen Bajo
Instituto de Artes Gráficas
Jardín Antonia Labastida
Jardín Sócrates
Mercado 20 de Noviembre
Mercado Benito Juárez
Mercado de Artesanías
Museo Casa Juárez
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca
Museo Regional de Oaxaca
Museo Rufino Tamayo
Palacio de Gobierno
Paseo Juárez
Plaza de la Danza
Plazuela del Carmen Alto
Teatro Macedonio
… and so on and so on..
In fact, I found a rather nice guide from Culture Trip on what to do in Oaxaca City which points out several cultural events, foods and places to visit. I fully recommend it if you are interested in the culture of Oaxaca, although I will write a comprehensive guide of my travel to the city later on in January.
The petrified waterfalls of Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca, MX. Photo by analuisa gamboa on Unsplash
If you want to learn more about the languages in Oaxaca, I recommend this short article from Culture Trip and this wiki.
References
[1] Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty-second edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version:http://www.ethnologue.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu.
[2] Sayer, P. (2009). Using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource. ELT journal, 64(2), 143-154.
Very recently, the Journal of Open Source Software published a paper called momepy: Urban Morphology Measuring Toolkit by Martin Fleischmann, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Architecture at the University of Strathclyde. The momepy toolkit allows researchers to measure spatial distributions (simple and complex) and spatial weights of buildings, blocks, plots, streets, networks, and other urban elements. The name momepy is short for Morphological Measuring in Python.
Fleischmann’s toolkit aims to help spread the use of Urban Morphometrics (UMM) [1], which is the description of urban form “via the systematic and comprehensive measurement of its morphological character” [2]. The issue is that this type of analysis has been lacking general-purpose software that allows researchers to make use of large datasets for the description of urban spaces and structures.
One key feature of momepy is the use of morphological tessellation. The following images illustrate the Voronoi tessellation function using Open Street Maps data from Böblingen (a town in Germany where I did a student internship at IBM):
Tessellation created using the code provided in the momepyUser Guide. Although the code is very simple to use, [at first] I could not get it working for larger urban areas[, but Martin Fleischmann helped me figure out a work around this issue. Please see below at the bottom of the article under the Erratum section].A zoom-in portion from the previous tessellation. The data for these images was gathered from the Open Street Map initiative and it is available under the CC 2.0 license (CC BY-SA). If you use these images or a portion/derivate of these images, please attribute Open Street Map and license your work through https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
The paper and its accompanying software are freely distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which allows free sharing and adaptation for any purpose as long as the correct attribution is given.
These are the links to the GitHub repository and the User Guide. I strongly suggest reading through the user guide for a brief survey of what momepy can do!
To know more about Martin Fleischmann, you can read his student profile here or visit his own website here!
momepy stemmed from current research in the Urban Design Studies Unit at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Pro tip: if you install momepy through conda-forge (which is the recommended way to install it), do it on a separate conda environment where you set the channel priority to strict. You will probably have to install matplotlib through conda-forge as well. Then you can install osmnx using pip if you want to use Open Steet Map’s data.
References
[1] Dibble, J., Prelorendjos, A., Romice, O., Zanella, M., Strano, E., Pagel, M., & Porta, S. (2017). On the origin of spaces: Morphometric foundations of urban form evolution. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 46(4), 707–730. doi:10.1177/2399808317725075
[2] Fleischmann, M. (2019). momepy: Urban Morphology Measuring Toolkit. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1807, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01807
Erratum
Martin Fleischmann graciously helped me to solve my issue on the tessellation of larger urban areas. I was able to tessellate for you the metropolitan area of Vancouver, CA, again using Open Street Map data. I also tried tessellating other larger urban areas, but the process failed on the part of the osmnx Python package. I might later look at this issue or I may not.
Tessellation of Vancouver urban area (‘Vancouver, Canada’) created using data for these images was gathered from the Open Street Map initiative and it is available under the CC 2.0 license (CC BY-SA). If you use these images or a portion/derivate of these images, please attribute Open Street Map and license your work through https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/Zoom in from previous imageHere we can see the actual Morphological Cells emerging from the image.
As Martin points out, when performing this type of analysis, one should beware the fact that it is resource consuming and the odds are that you will need to have a good computer or use some kind of web service to process your analysis. If you are on the coding/big data side of urban studies and you are interested in Martin’s work, I recommend that you follow him on his GitHub page for the latest news on his work @martinfleis
Dear readers, season two of The The Fitzroy Diaries is out! If you haven’t heard this weird (good weird) audio drama about the Fitzroy suburb in Australia, I do suggest you check it out. Maybe during your commute to work or while you do chores at home. The podcast is a great example of what types of audio drama are out there and the sound design is very very good. Even if you have never listened to podcasts or if you have never been to Australia, I am sure you will enjoy the suburban soundscapes this great podcast offers.
Happy listening!
The Fitzroy Diaries is an award-winning 8-chapter fictional podcast about the daily lives of the mid-class residents of Fitzroy, an inner-city suburb located in Melbourne. The podcast reflects the experiences, concerns, and lifestyle of its characters in this Australian suburb. Writer and narrator Lorin Clarke captures the essence of Fitzroy, which even after many waves of gentrification it still shows its past on both its landscape and its people. After listening to the full first season, I cannot wait until October this year when we get to listen to more of this podcast’s beautiful sound design and its unique approach to radio drama.
The Fitzroy Diaries is a podcast by the Australian Broadcast Corporation. It is written and directed by Lorin Clarke and produced by Sophie Townsend.
Tlatelolco Marketplace, Wikimedia, Joe Ravi, Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 
urbanculturalstudies 