We combine classic and contemporary articles from a variety of perspectives, including literature and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, history and architecture. Participants from all disciplines are invited to join and suggest texts for discussion. We read texts circulated by the session moderator two weeks in advance of the Zoom meeting. Sessions are moderated on a rotating basis to ensure the inclusion of various perspectives.​

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The Reading Group welcomes academics at all stages of their career and all disciplines as well as artists and members of the public interested in the urban. To join us, contact: Olga Springer.

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2024-2025:

6 and 7 March 2025 online (Thursday 14-17h CET and Friday 10-13h CET)

This year's topic is URBAN THRESHOLDS.

Spaces are limited and allocated on a FCFS basis. Registration available here.

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2023-2024:

7 and 8 March 2024 (Thursday and Friday)

• Pike, David. “Introduction.” Subterranean Cities: The World beneath Paris and London, 1800–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2005. 1-19.

• Thrush, Coll. “'Such Confusion as I Never Dreamt': Indigenous Reasonings in an Unreasonable City, 1766-1785”, Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire. Yale UP, 2016. 103-132.

• Nel, Adéle. “The repugnant appeal of the abject: cityscape and cinematic corporality in District 9”, Critical Arts, 2012, 26:4, 547-569.

• Horstkotte, Silke and Nancy Pedri. “Experiencing Visual Storyworlds: Focalization in Comics”, Experiencing Visual Storyworlds: Focalization in Comics. Ed. Silke Horstkotte and Nancy Pedri. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2022. 1-24.

• Bechdel, Alison. The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For. 2008. (brief excerpts)

• Lutes, Jason. Berlin: City of Stones. 2000. (brief excerpt)

• Sacco, Joe. Palestine. Introd. Edward Said. 2002. (brief excerpt)

• Younas, Abida and Kawthar Yasser Al Othman. “Postcolonial Metropolitan Cities Go Feral: A Critical Study of Middle Eastern and South Asian Cities in Selected Anglophone Fiction”, Urban Poetics and Politics in Contemporary South Asia and the Middle East. Ed. by Moussa Pourya Asl. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2023. 1-17.

• Tawfik, Khaled Ahmed. Utopia. Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2008. (brief excerpts)

• Laing, Olivia. “In Loving Him”, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2017. 95-133.

Programme

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2022-2023:

• Tue 4 Oct 2022. Straw, W. “Urban Labor and the Cinematic Nocturne”, The Routledge Companion to Media and the City, 2022, pp. 100-107.

• Tue 15 Nov 2022. Chapter: Davies, D. 'Introduction'. In: Urban Comics: Infrastructure and the Global City in Contemporary Graphic Narratives. Routledge, 2018.

• Tue 13 Dec 2022. Article: “From Repertoires of Resistance to Monuments of Absence”, European Journal of Theatre and Performance 4 (June 2022): 160-197.

• Tue 7 March 2023. The Cybermohalla Project Cybermohalla | s a r a i

• Tue 18 April 2023. Article: "Feeling the city: migrant narratives and urban space" (Györke and Timár, 2021). "Light, energy and gendered oil gluttony: Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s challenges topetrocapitalism" (Allan, 2020). Trailer: The Writer From a Country Without Bookstores

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2021-2022:

• Tue 28 Sept. Article: Stavrides, Stavros. “Navigating the Metropolitan Space: Walking as a form of negotiation with otherness”, Journal of Psychogeography and Urban Research, Vol. 1.1., 2001. & Article: Stavrides, Stavros. “Commoning the city. Reinventing togetherness”, Eurozine, May 2020.

• Tue 9 Nov. Chapter 5. City of Fear, from: Kern, Leslie. Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. London: Verso, 2020.

• Tue 7 Dec. A section TBA from: Ameel, L.; Finch, J.; Salmela, M. Literary Second Cities, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017.

• Tue 1 Feb.Article: Hayden, Dolores. “What would a Non-sexist City be Like: Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work”, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1980. 

• Tue 15 March. Essay: Cole, Teju. "Black Body", from Known and Strange Things, 2016.

• Tue 26 April. A section from: Mernissi, Fatima. Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, 1994. 

• Tue 7 June. Short story:  Evaristo, Bernardine. "Carole", Girl, Woman Other, 2019.

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2020-2021:

• Wed 10 March. Article: “Cities and Sexualities” (Hubbard et. al., 2015)​

• Wed 21 April. Article: “The Invisible Flâneuse” (Janet Wolff, 1985)​

• Wed 2 June. A section on social class and the urban from The Worst Street in North London (Jerry White, 1986)