HomeAmerican cities in the 21st Century : linguistic, cultural and social representations

American cities in the 21st Century : linguistic, cultural and social representations

Villes américaines du XXIe siècle : réalités et représentations sociales, culturelles et linguistiques

Ciudades americanas del siglo XXI: realidades y representaciones sociales, culturales y lingüísticas

Cidades americanas no século XXI: realidades e representações sociais, culturais e linguísticas

Amerika volume 9

Revue Amerika n°9

Amerika numero 9

Amerika numero 9

*  *  *

Published on Monday, July 15, 2013

Abstract

Volume 9 in the Amerika series will have an interdisciplinary perspective: encompassing aesthetic representations (literature, cinema, art), urbanism, sociology, anthropology and linguistics. This plural approach will enable us to establish the basis of an analysis of the new “realities” of American cities in the 21st Century, whilst examining the paths followed by aesthetic and social representations of these new urban landscapes. The idea of devoting this volume of Amerika to the various representations of 20th century American cities emanated from the theme of the 19th Congress of the German Association of Hispanists which took place in Munster from 20-23 March 2013. The panel, comprising 20 specialists, was organized by Sabine Schlickers and Victoria Torres.

Announcement

Argument

It soon became evident that the neo-liberal measures successively implemented in the majority of Latin American countries during the severe economic crisis of the 1980s had deepened the social divide that already existed, rather than bringing solutions. Far from disappearing, the ghettos and minority communities in countries on the American continent have continued to spread in recent years.

The gaping hole that subsequently opened up between the rich and the poor has been accompanied by a shift in the physiognomy of cities. The clearest signs of this shift are, on the one hand, the proliferation of precarious housing and slums (“villas miseria”, “favelas”, “tugurios”, “chabolas”, “ghettos” “enclaves”, etc., depending on the terms used in each country), and on the other, the construction of private neighborhoods, veritable fortified towns within towns where the rare affluent classes have taken refuge, seeking to protect themselves from the dangers they believe to have been brought about by the expansion of poverty.

These two habitats manifestly illustrate the fading of any hope of a compact homogeneity of the modern Latino-American city (Goerlik / Silvestri) and mark, on the contrary, the accelerated proliferation of what theoreticians have named “ciudades duales” (Casells, Sassen; or “divided cities”), “fragmented cities with self-contained sectors”) (Harvey, Prévot-Shapira, Vidal-Rojas), or “quartered cities” (Peter Marcuse).

In these reconfigurations of the Latino-American urban space, highly significant processes must also be taken into account, such as the massive privatization of public space, the restructuring of intermediate areas, the shift in the frameworks of spaces for socializing and for shaping identities such as the neighborhood. These are the consequences, for certain projects - particularly private ones - of their massive planning, and for others - squats or “occupied” housing - of their informal and random growth. All these phenomena would suggest a citizenship in crisis.

Such redefinitions - among others which are no less significant- of contemporary urban space give rise not only to the appearance of new social subjects (“chicos countries”, urban tribes such as the “cartoneros” etc.;) but also to new forms of (non)-cohabitation, segregation and new forms of expression.

Volume 9 in the Amerika series will have an interdisciplinary perspective: encompassing aesthetic representations (literature, cinema, art), urbanism, sociology, anthropology and linguistics. This plural approach will enable us to establish the basis of an analysis of the new “realities” of American cities in the 21st Century, whilst examining the paths followed by aesthetic and social representations of these new urban landscapes.

The idea of devoting this volume of Amerika to the various representations of 20th century American cities emanated from the theme of the 19th Congress of the German Association of Hispanists which took place in Munster from 20-23 March 2013. The panel, comprising 20 specialists, was organized by Sabine Schlickers and Victoria Torres.

Submission guidelines

The proposals (40.000 signs, footnotes and bibliography included) should be sent to www.amerika.revues.com OR nestorponce35@yahoo.fr

before the 30th November2013

Articles can be submitted in one of the following languages : Spanish, French, English, Portuguese. 

Presentation norms for articles can be found in our Amerika journal (www;amerika.revues.org).

Convenors

  • Victoria Torres (Cologne),
  • Sabine Schlickers (Bremen),
  • Néstor Ponce (Rennes 2).

Subjects


Date(s)

  • Saturday, November 30, 2013

Keywords

  • Villes, Amérique, XXIe siècle, réalités, représentations sociales, représentations culturelles, représentations linguistiques

Contact(s)

  • Néstor Ponce
    courriel : nestorponce35 [at] yahoo [dot] fr

Information source

  • Élodie Blestel
    courriel : elodieblestel [at] yahoo [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« American cities in the 21st Century : linguistic, cultural and social representations », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, July 15, 2013, https://doi.org/10.58079/o0i

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