Urban Narratives and the Spaces of Rome

Urban Narratives and the Spaces of Rome
Author: Gregory Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-07-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 100041017X

This book foregrounds the works of Pier Paolo Pasolini to study the Roman periphery and examine the relevance of Pasolini’s vision in the construction of subaltern identity and experience. It analyses the contemporary Italian society to understand the problem of social exclusion of marginal communities. Narrative studies are at the core of the contemporary social science research. This book uses narrative analysis to unpack the deeper meaning of Rome’s stigmatized periphery through an interplay of Italian cinema, literature, and social and political climates. It encourages a positive interpretation of the Roman periphery through its characterization as a homogeneous area of marginality as emphasized in Pasolini’s writings and films on Rome. This re-evaluation left a lasting impact on the modern periphery and the narratives of ordinary citizens as evident in contemporary street art and popular musical production. Pasolini’s revolutionary vision allows us to appreciate the human and aesthetic character of urban life in regions beyond the main urban areas. The respect for subaltern urban communities encouraged by this book can be extended from Rome to other parts of the world. This book presents an interconnection of social theory, geography, poetry, literature, film and the visual arts to study the experience of life in underprivileged urban areas. Written in an accessible style, the book offers a reimagining of the Roman periphery which will appeal to readers in France, Spain, Italy, Australia, areas which have significant interest in Italian studies and the works of Pasolini.

Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape

Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape
Author: Dom Holdaway
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317320611

Until the mid-twentieth century the Western imagination seemed intent on viewing Rome purely in terms of its classical past or as a stop on the Grand Tour. This collection of essays looks at Rome from a postmodern perspective, including analysis of the city's 'unmappability', its fragmented narratives and its iconic status in literature and film.

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day
Author: Dr Jan Gadeyne
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 606
Release: 2013-05-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472404270

This volume provides readers interested in urban history with a collection of essays on the evolution of public space in that paradigmatic western city which is Rome. Scholars specialized in different historical periods contributed chapters, in order to find common themes which weave their way through one of the most complex urban histories of western civilization. Divided into five chronological sections (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Modern and Contemporary) the volume opens with the issue of how public space was defined in classical Roman law and how ancient city managers organized the maintenance of these spaces, before moving on to explore how this legacy was redefined and reinterpreted during the Middle Ages. The third group of essays examines how the imposition of papal order on feuding families during the Renaissance helped introduce a new urban plan which could satisfy both functional and symbolic needs. The fourth section shows how modern Rome continued to express strong interest in the control and management of public space, the definition of which was necessarily selective in this vastly extensive city. The collection ends with an essay on the contemporary debate for revitalizing Rome's eastern periphery. Through this long-term chronological approach the volume offers a truly unique insight into the urban development of one of Europe’s most important cities, and concludes with a discuss of the challenges public space faces today after having served for so many centuries as a driving force in urban history.

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day
Author: Jan Gadeyne
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317081706

This volume provides readers interested in urban history with a collection of essays on the evolution of public space in that paradigmatic western city which is Rome. Scholars specialized in different historical periods contributed chapters, in order to find common themes which weave their way through one of the most complex urban histories of western civilization. Divided into five chronological sections (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Modern and Contemporary) the volume opens with the issue of how public space was defined in classical Roman law and how ancient city managers organized the maintenance of these spaces, before moving on to explore how this legacy was redefined and reinterpreted during the Middle Ages. The third group of essays examines how the imposition of papal order on feuding families during the Renaissance helped introduce a new urban plan which could satisfy both functional and symbolic needs. The fourth section shows how modern Rome continued to express strong interest in the control and management of public space, the definition of which was necessarily selective in this vastly extensive city. The collection ends with an essay on the contemporary debate for revitalizing Rome's eastern periphery. Through this long-term chronological approach the volume offers a truly unique insight into the urban development of one of Europe’s most important cities, and concludes with a discuss of the challenges public space faces today after having served for so many centuries as a driving force in urban history.

Rome

Rome
Author: Rabun Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2016-09-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1316679373

Spanning the entire history of the city of Rome from Iron Age village to modern metropolis, this is the first book to take the long view of the Eternal City as an urban organism. Three thousand years old and counting, Rome has thrived almost from the start on self-reference, supplementing the everyday concerns of urban management and planning by projecting its own past onto the city of the moment. This is a study of the urban processes by which Rome's people and leaders, both as custodians of its illustrious past and as agents of its expansive power, have shaped and conditioned its urban fabric by manipulating geography and organizing space; planning infrastructure; designing and presiding over mythmaking, ritual, and stagecraft; controlling resident and transient populations; and exploiting Rome's standing as a seat of global power and a religious capital.

Placeness and the Performative Production of Space

Placeness and the Performative Production of Space
Author: Aleksandar Sasha Dundjerovic
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2024-09-05
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1350349836

How can performance create and transform places of urban renewal and regeneration? What does performance contribute to the creation of community? These are some of the questions addressed in this study of the relationship of performance to urban space. Marrying theory with a series of international case studies of performance practice and interviews with practitioners, this interdisciplinary study examines how space is performatively produced to create a sense of 'placeness'. Offering multiple perspectives on space and place, this book investigates the connections between space and the construction of social and cultural narratives. It focuses on the multiple ways performative actions produce space, including theatre, installations, site-specific work, visual arts and digital performance. Combining interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary performance, architecture and digital media studies, this study builds on a clear theoretical framework that draws on the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefevre, Richard Schechner, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Lev Manovich and Slavoj Žižek. It offers themed sections comprising theory, studies of practice and interviews with practitioners. Case studies include site-specific work by Catalan collective La Fura Dels Baus, Barcelona, Spain, the Prague Quadrennial, community engagement in Praça Roosevelt in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Portland Inn Project in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, Campo de la Cebada in Madrid, Spain, and digital spaces created by artists in India and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space.

Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space.
Author: Ray Laurence
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2011-11-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199583129

"Demonstrates how studies of the Roman city are shifting focus from static architecture to activities and motion within urban spaces. This volume provides detailed case studies from the three best-known cities from Roman Italy, revealing how movement contributes to our understanding of the ways different elements of society interacted in space, and how the movement of people and materials shaped urban development."--Book jacket.

Narrative Space and Time

Narrative Space and Time
Author: Elana Gomel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2014-02-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 113451963X

Space is a central topic in cultural and narrative theory today, although in most cases theory assumes Newtonian absolute space. However, the idea of a universal homogeneous space is now obsolete. Black holes, multiple dimensions, quantum entanglement, and spatio-temporal distortions of relativity have passed into culture at large. This book examines whether narrative can be used to represent these "impossible" spaces. Impossible topologies abound in ancient mythologies, from the Australian Aborigines’ "dream-time" to the multiple-layer universe of the Sumerians. More recently, from Alice’s adventures in Wonderland to contemporary science fiction’s obsession with black holes and quantum paradoxes, counter-intuitive spaces are a prominent feature of modern and postmodern narrative. With the rise and popularization of science fiction, the inventiveness and variety of impossible narrative spaces explodes. The author analyses the narrative techniques used to represent such spaces alongside their cultural significance. Each chapter connects narrative deformation of space with historical problematic of time, and demonstrates the cognitive and perceptual primacy of narrative in representing, imagining and apprehending new forms of space and time. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the connection between narratology, cultural theory, science fiction, and studies of place.

Film and Urban Space

Film and Urban Space
Author: Geraldine Pratt
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0748630201

Film and Urban Space: Critical Possibilities traces recurring debates about what constitutes film's political potential and argues that the relation between film and urban space has been crucial to these debates and their historical transformations. The book demonstrates that in the attempt to follow certain prescriptions shooting on location, disrupting normalizing time, experimenting with memory, interlinking the spaces of screen and cinema films invariably use the relation between film and urban space as a kind of laboratory, testing anew received prescriptions but invariably encountering new opportunities and new limits. A wide range of key films, from Dziga Vertov's 1928 Man with a Movie Camera to Jia Zhangke's 2008 24 City, are discussed in depth, each offering an argument for how the encounter between specific manifestations of modern urban space and politically engaged film strategies has served to challenge the status quo and stimulate critical thinking.

Narratives of Mediterranean Spaces

Narratives of Mediterranean Spaces
Author: Silvia Caserta
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2022-10-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3031077733

Narratives of Mediterranean Space: Literature and Art across Land and Sea presents a comparative analysis of contemporary literary and visual narratives of movement and migration produced in Italian, Arabic and French. It analyzes how these works create a dialogue across the Mediterranean Sea. By paying attention to the multiple ways in which the Mediterranean is being narrated by contemporary writers and artists, Silvia Caserta aims to propose a reconceptualization of the Mediterranean as a polyphonic space of movement and resistance. The Mediterranean space that emerges from this study is a space that, by virtue of the instability and porosity of its geographical and cultural borders, is able to overcome normative dichotomies between north and south, east and west, local and global. This book proposes the Mediterranean is a fruitful area from which to investigate the wider contradictions of the contemporary global world while avoiding the traps of “Mediterraneanism”. For this reason, the book highlights the contradictions and dissonances that emerge from reading Mediterranean works, opening up multiple perspectives on the Sea and on the different lands that surround it.