Lieven Ameel - The Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History

The Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History explores a variety of geographical and cultural contexts to examine what literary texts, grasped as material objects and reflections on urban materialities, have to offer for urban history.

The contributing writers approach to literary narratives and materialities in urban history is summarised within the conceptualisation materiality in/of literature: the way in which literary narratives at once refer to the material world and actively partake in the material construction of the world. This book takes a geographically multipolar and multidisciplinary approach to discuss cities in the UK, the US, India, South Africa, Finland, and France whilst examining a wide range of textual genres from the novel to cartoons, advertising copy, architecture and urban planning, and archaeological writing. In the process, attention is drawn to narrative complexities embedded within literary fiction and to the dialogue between narratives and historical change.

The Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History has three areas of focus: literary fiction as form of urban materiality, literary narratives as social investigations of the material city, and the narrating of silenced material lives as witnessed in various narrative sources.

Lieven Ameel is Senior Research Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Turku, Finland. Research interests include encounters in public space, city literature, urban futures, and narratives in urban planning.

Jason Finch teaches at bo Akademi University in Finland. He is the author or editor of six books, most recently Deep Locational Criticism (2016) and Literary Second Cities (co-edited, 2017). Research interests include modern urban literatures, especially UK and US, and theories and methodologies of space and place in literary studies.

Silja Laine is an urban historian with a background in cultural history and landscape studies. Her research interests range from urban literature and visual culture to environmental humanities. She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher in Landscape Architecture at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Finland.

Richard Dennis is Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College London. He is co-editor of Architectures of Hurry (2018) and author of Cities in Modernity (2008) as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century London and Toronto, including essays on literary representations of both cities.

Series Editors: Bert De Munck (Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp) and Simon Gunn (Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester)

This series showcases original and exciting new work in urban history. It publishes books that challenge existing assumptions about the history of cities, apply new theoretical frames to the urban past, and open up new avenues of historical enquiry. The scope of the series is global, and it covers all time periods from the ancient to the modern worlds.

1 Cities and Creativity from the Renaissance to the Present

Edited by Ilja Van Damme, Bert De Munck, and Andrew Miles

2 Migration Policies and Materialities of Identification in European Cities

Papers and Gates, 15001930s

Edited by Hilde Greefs and Anne Winter

3 Urbanizing Nature

Actors and Agency (Dis)Connecting Cities and Nature Since 1500

Edited by Tim Soens, Dieter Schott, Michael Toyka-Seid and Bert De Munck

4 Cities, Railways, Modernities

London, Paris, and the Nineteenth Century

Carlos Lpez Galviz

5 The Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History

Edited by Lieven Ameel, Jason Finch, Silja Laine and Richard Dennis

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Urban-History/book-series/RAUH

Edited by Lieven Ameel, Jason Finch, Silja Laine and Richard Dennis

First published 2020

by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Taylor & Francis

The right of Lieven Ameel, Jason Finch, Silja Laine and Richard Dennis to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ameel, Lieven, 1978 editor. | Finch, Jason, editor. |
Laine, Silja editor. | Dennis, Richard, 1949 editor.

Title: The materiality of literary narratives in urban history / edited by Lieven Ameel,
Jason Finch, Silja Laine and Richard Dennis.

Description: New York: Routledge 2020. | Series: Routledge advances in urban history | Identifiers: LCCN 2019021694 (print) | LCCN 2019981181 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367343293 | ISBN 9780429325052 (ebook other)

Subjects: LCSH: Cities and towns in literature. | Cities and towns in mass media. | Narration (Rhetoric)Social aspects. | Cities and townsHistory. | Cities and townsHistoriography.

Classification: LCC PN56.C55 M384 2020 (print) | LCC PN56.C55 (ebook) |
DDC 809/.93321732dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021694

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981181

ISBN: 978-0-367-34329-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-32505-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra

LIEVEN AMEEL, JASON FINCH, SILJA LAINE AND RICHARD DENNIS

PART I
Literary Fiction as Urban Materiality

BO PETTERSSON

MARKKU SALMELA

ALEKSEJS TAUBE

SILJA LAINE

JASON FINCH

PART II
Literary Narratives as Social Investigations of the Material City

LUCIE GLASHEEN

FLORE JANSSEN

RICHARD DENNIS

JULIE GIMBAL

PART III
Narrating Silenced Material Lives

HUDA TAYOB

ELKE ROGERSDOTTER

ANUBHAV PRADHAN

Lieven Ameel is Senior Research Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. Research interests include encounters in public space, city literature, urban futures, and narratives in urban planning.

Richard Dennis is Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College London. He is the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles on the built environment and social conditions in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London and Toronto, including several essays on literary representations of the social geography of both cities.