Hispanic Urban Studies book series launched [Palgrave Macmillan]

Hispanic Urban Studies

[Click here for *.pdf announcement: Hispanic Urban Studies]

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Edited by

Benjamin Fraser, East Carolina University, USA

Susan Larson, University of Kentucky, USA

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Hispanic Urban Studies is a series of scholarly monographs, edited volumes, and translations focusing on Spanish, Latin American and US Latino urban culture.

The humanities and the social sciences are closer in methodology than ever before. Hispanic Urban Studies serves a dual purpose: to introduce radically original humanities work to social science researchers while affirming the relevance of cultural production to discussions of the urban. This book series takes advantage of and further contributes to exciting interdisciplinary discussions between Hispanic Studies and Cultural Geography with the aim of bringing in new ideas about space, place, and culture from all parts of the Hispanic world. Monograph titles bring together analyses of the cultural production of the Hispanic world with urban and spatial theory from a range of disciplinary contexts. The series also welcomes proposals for edited volumes related to cities that contribute in creative ways to our understanding of the spatial turn in Hispanic Studies. Translations published in the series introduce English-language readers to the rich legacy of materials on urbanism, urban culture, and cultural geography originally published in Spanish.

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Advisory Board

Malcolm Compitello, University of Arizona, USA; Monica Degen, Brunel University, London, UK; Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, University of Oregon, USA; Amanda Holmes, McGill University, Canada; Marcy Schwartz, Rutgers University, USA; Álvaro Sevilla Buitrago, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain; Armando Silva, National University of Colombia, Bogotá; Michael Ugarte, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA; Víctor Valle, California Polytechnic State University, USA.

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If you would like to submit a proposal for the Hispanic Urban Studies Series please feel free to contact:

Farideh Koohi-Kamali

Palgrave Macmillan

Farideh.Koohi@palgrave-usa.com

 

Madrid’s Gran Vía Digital Humanities Project

Brief video introduction [created with Camtasia 2] explaining a student-produced Digital Humanities project investigating Madrid’s Gran Vía [created with Omeka / Neatline].

This way of approaching DH work is particularly conducive to urban-scaled projects, and does not require extensive data mining or GIS components – although these approaches could certainly be integrated. (I will be presenting this project alongside my colleague at a June conference in Charleston titled: Data Driven: Digital Humanities in the Library.)

Explore the map-interface of the actual DH project here.

UCS 008 Masterson-Algar on Ecuadorians in Madrid’s Retiro Park

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]

005 – Los Angeles and Hollywood – Kooistra reads the Urban Sexual Economy through Films Novels and the Courts – Urban Cultural Studies Podcasts

UCS 005 Kooistra on Prostitution in Hollywood/Los Angeles: Films, Novels and the Courts Kooistra (13 August 2013)  Conversational interview inspired by scholar AnneMarie Kooistra’s article “The Harlot City?: Prostitution in Hollywood, 1920-1940,” forthcoming 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.

[newer] eflyer – Journal of Urban Cultural Studies (Intellect)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF OF THIS eFlyer

002 – Tokyo – Thornbury on Trains, Gender and Mobility – Urban Cultural Studies Podcast

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,” forthcoming 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 PUBLISHER]

Guest-edited special issue: Madrid and Urban Cultural Studies

The guest-edited issue on the topic of “Madrid and urban cultural studies” has been published in the International Journal of Iberian Studies (26.1-2 [2013]: pp. 3-102). Click here for link to publisher’s page.

Editorial and four articles include:

Review of 2 Books on Urban Culture in China

In volume 3 issue 1 of Reviews in Cultural Theory, Joshua Neves has reviewed these two books:

Yomi Braester. Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract. Duke University Press, 2010. 405 pp.

Robin Visser. Cities Surround the Countryside: Urban Aesthetics in Postsocialist China. Duke University Press, 2010. 362 pp.

Read the review in the original context here

and click here for youtube discussion by the authors of those books.

 

 

A Brief Building History: Madrid’s Torres KIO / Torres de Europa

This photo shows the building(s) while still under construction–an essay by Malcolm Compitello notes “the original plan for the building dates from the mid-1980s. The architectural design was entrusted to the architectural firm of Burgee, Johnson and Associates known for their design of large buildings. Perhaps their most famous and controversial work is the firm’s initial entry into the realm of the grand postmodern, the AT&T Tower in New York. The elaboration of the plan for the work, the first inclined high-rise towers ever designed, was entrusted to Leslie E. Robertson and Associates. LERA is the New York-based structural engineering firm that has engineered the majority of the world’s tallest buildings, including the Torres Picasso in Madrid.”

See the original article here, and the building also plays a central role in the film El día de la bestia/The Day of the Beast (1995) by Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia. (a great cult classic)