Editors:
Looks at the underexamined phenomena of the 'second city'
Crosses linguistic and disciplinary boundaries with contributions from a variety of areas
Looks at cities and literature very much in their historical contexts, bringing together discussions of early modern cities with reflections on the contemporary moment
Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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In the Shadow of the Alpha City
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Front Matter
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Frontier Second Cities
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Front Matter
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The Diffuse Second City
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book brings together geographers and literary scholars in a series of engagements near the boundaries of their disciplines. In urban studies, disproportionate attention has been given to a small set of privileged ‘first’ cities. This volume problematizes the dominance of such alpha cities, offering a wide perspective on ‘second cities’ and their literature. The volume is divided into three themed sections. ‘In the Shadow of the Alpha City’ problematizes the image of cities defined by their function and size, bringing out the contradictions and contestations inherent in cultural productions of second cities, including Birmingham and Bristol in the UK, Las Vegas in the USA, and Tartu in Estonia. ‘Frontier Second Cities’ pays attention to the multiple and trans-national pasts of second cities which occupy border zones, with a focus on Narva, in Estonia, and Turkish/Kurdish Diyarbakir. The final section, ‘The Diffuse Second City’, examines networks the diffuse secondary city made up of interlinked small cities, suburban sprawl and urban overspill, with literary case studies from Italy, Sweden, and Finland.
Reviews
“Urban literary studies has understandably focused attention on certain major, global cities -- London, Paris, New York, Tokyo -- haut lieux that dominate the spatial imagination. But what of the second cities, smaller, less revered, but perhaps more representative of urban life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? The essays in Literary Second Cities address this blind spot by analysing the distinctive space and character of these ’secondary’ places. This is a vital and necessary collection.” (Professor Robert T. Tally Jr., Department of English, Texas State University)
“This volume will appeal to those with an interest in writing on city spaces that are off the beaten paths of world literature. Through its focus on ‘secondariness’ it highlights the importance of social and cultural phenomena that tend to emerge outside of and in tension with centers of power, phenomena that demonstrate the ongoing need for the kinds of representational reconfigurations and interpretive insights that give literary discourse its special power over the real.” (Professor Eric Prieto, French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Editors and Affiliations
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Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
Jason Finch
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Helsinki University, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Lieven Ameel
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University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Markku Salmela
About the editors
Jason Finch is Assistant Professor in English Language and Literature at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Previously published works include Deep Locational Criticism: Imaginative Place in Literary Research and Teaching and E.M. Forster and English Place: A Literary Topography.
Lieven Ameel is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Tampere, Finland. Previously published works include Helsinki in Early Twentieth-Century Literature: Urban Experiences in Finnish Prose Fiction 1890-1940, and Language, Space and Power: Urban Entanglements (ed.).
Markku Salmela is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Tampere, Finland. Previously published works include Paul Auster's Spatial Imagination and The Grotesque and the Unnatural (ed.).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Literary Second Cities
Editors: Jason Finch, Lieven Ameel, Markku Salmela
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62719-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-62718-2Published: 06 December 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87377-0Published: 27 May 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-62719-9Published: 22 November 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 267
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations
Topics: Contemporary Literature, Literary Theory, Urban Geography / Urbanism (inc. megacities, cities, towns), Urban Studies/Sociology