Archive for April, 2013
The rebuilding of Paris and its reflection in works by Zola, Verne and Hugo
Posted by cathannabel in Literature, The City on April 27, 2013
Décombres de l’avenir et projets rudéraux : les métamorphoses de Paris chez Verne, Hugo et Zola
Claudia Bouliane’s recently published MA dissertation is available online as a PDF.
The abstract is as follows :
Between 1853 and 1870, many areas of the French capital are torn down to allow the establishment of new avenues by Baron Haussmann, Paris’ prefect under Napoleon III. These major urban projects have struck the social imaginary and became an object of fascination for literature. This essay is located on the grounds of sociocriticism and seeks to understand how Verne’s, Hugo’s and Zola’s texts interpret the Paris’ new urban conformation. In Paris au XXe siècle (1863) Jules Verne is planning future destructions and, in turn, imagines the strange constructiveness of residual past. Although in exile, Victor Hugo is very aware of urban and social changes under way. In Paris (1867) his writing works to make compatible…
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Michel BUTOR; l’espace entre 2 villes
Posted by cathannabel in Michel Butor, The City on April 25, 2013
Ajoutez votre grain de sel personnel… (facultatif)
LES LIGNES DU MONDE - géographie & littérature(s)
On n’est pas le même partout. L’équilibre entre 2 villes ; deux pôles ; et ce qui les relie : un fil de la vierge léger léger : le trajet en train. Il y a longtemps que cette vieille édition rose de 1994 (achetée sur conseil : “tu aimes le train, c’est un roman à lire dans le train, d’autant que tu prends souvent cette ligne” (fut un temps avec arrêt à Firenze, ville non mentionnée il me semble dans le roman)) passe d’étagère en étagère. Donc près de 20 ans après – laissé mûrir le livre, commencé une fois à l’époque, prêté plusieurs fois depuis – la litanie des gares, l’aller pour Rome.
car s’il est maintenant certain que vous n’aimez véritablement Cécile que dans la mesure où elle est pour vous le visage de Rome, sa voix et son invitation, que vous ne l’aimez pas sans Rome et…
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Don’t hate, donate
Posted by cathannabel in Politics on April 8, 2013
Be the society Thatcher said didn’t exist…
I won’t rejoice in anyone’s death. The best response to Thatcher is, as Alex Higgins says here, to be the society that she said didn’t exist. Don’t hate, donate.
The Original Modern
Posted by cathannabel in Michel Butor, The City, W G Sebald on April 3, 2013
cities@manchester on Manchester, the original shock city
by Brian Rosa, PhD candidate in Geography
Manchester is a city of superlatives: it was the prototypical “shock city” of the Industrial Revolution, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx’s model for everything that was abhorrent in the industrial capitalist city, and one of the birthplaces of the labor and women’s suffrage movements. In its heyday, Manchester was depicted in literature of Engels, Alexis de Toqueville and later the paintings of L.S. Lowry, as an uninterrupted, chaotic anti-landscape of chimneys and smoke, strewn across a featureless topography. Its unprecedented configuration invoked equal parts awe and dread, moral panic, and tempestuous visions of the future. In 1833, Toqueville described the crowded conditions, poorly constructed housing, hulking factories, and environmental degradation of Manchester: “From the foul drain the great stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete…
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