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Original essays are invited for a collection tentatively entitled "Varieties of Urban Experience: Everyday Life and the American City." The purpose of this book is to foster "thick descriptions" of the cultural symbols, rituals, and myths that are spawned by and played out within contemporary American cities. This collection is intended to provide a corpus of urban experiences that will provide a means for understanding the paradigmatic essentials of urban culture in the U.S. Ideally this collection will be a comprehensive textbook concerning the most prominent issues and debates in the field of urban cultural studies that will be suitable for undergraduates, graduates, and academics alike.
Recognizing "culture" as a process of meaning construction, essays should attend to the ways in which people make sense of their particular urban environment and how they act within the permeable confines of urban space. Essays should focus on the everyday practices and interactions in American cities. As such, we welcome essays on a diverse array of cities that may include, but are not limited to, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, Santa Fe, Portland, etc. We are also interested in essays that apply, adapt, and critique a diverse array of theoretical and methodological approaches from both the social sciences and humanities. Preference will be given to discussions that apply, adapt, and critique specific theorists who deal explicitly with urban existence and/or social interaction, such as, but not limited to, Simmel, Benjamin, Mumford, Debord, Goffman, Geertz, Hebdige, de Certeau, Bourdieu, Harvey and those associated with either the "Chicago school" or the "L.A. school."
The deadline for submission of completed papers is June 30, 2003. Please send completed manuscripts (Chicago format, 15-20 pages in length) tothe address below.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us via e-mail.
This collection co-edited by Michael Ian Borer and Davin Heckman.
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