/ Atelier Amérique du Nord : la fabrique de l’Amérique (archives 2008-2017)

Klaus Benesch : « Rethinking the City : Identity, Heritage, Globalization »

22 novembre 2016, 17h-19h, ENS de Lyon site Descartes (15 parvis René Descartes), salle F 106

Speaker

Klaus Benesch, Professor of English and American Studies at LMU-University of Munich.

Abstract

This talk will discuss some core assumptions about the city, both in urban and cultural studies. Taking as my point of departure Mike Davis’ claim that the city figures as both a major driving force of, and a potential solution to, contemporary ecological crisis, I look at how cities have to change in order to bring forth their ‘urban’ qualities and to rein in what Davis conceives of as the un- or anti-urban tendencies concomitant with globalization and unfettered capitalism.

Selected texts

Benesch, Klaus (ed.). Culture and Mobility. Heidelberg : Winter, 2013.

Davis, Mike. “Who Will build the Ark ?” New Left Review 61 (2010) : 29-46 ; 29-30.

Frampton, Kenneth. “Towards a Critical Regionalism : Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance.” In : Hal Foster, ed. The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture. Seattle, OE : Bay Press, 1983. 16-30.

Mumford, Lewis. The City in History. San Diego/New York/London : Harcourt Brace & Company, 1961.

Orvell, Miles and Klaus Benesch (eds.). Rethinking the American City : An International Dialogue. Philadelphia, PA : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Ruskin, John. “The Poetry of Architecture ; Or The Architecture of the Nations of Europe Considered in Its Association With Natural Scenery and National Character.” [1903] The Complete Works of John Ruskin. Vol. 1 (Poetry of Architecture, Seven Lamps, Modern Painters). New York, NY/Chicago, IL : National Library Association. Web. Project Gutenberg (release 2006) <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/177...> (October 20, 2015).

Simmel, Georg. "Metropolis and Mental Life" [1903]. In : The Blackwell City Reader. 11-19.