Description:
Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City attempts to chart the burgeoning field of literary urban studies by outlining how texts function as both representation of the city and as blueprints for its future development.
Review Quotes:
"In Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City, Jens Gurr offers a bracing new claim for what literature and literary studies can do. More practical and strategic than the familiar analysis of the "cultural work" that literature performs, his approach suggests that narrative, in literary texts but also in the texts created as part of urban planning and development, can provide models and scripts to help us think about what cities could be. In exploring this potential, Gurr advocates for the value of the humanities, not merely to reflect or uplift human experience but to shape it." --Sherry Lee Linkon, Georgetown University
"Finally, there is a systematic overview of a field that has gained much importance in recent years. Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City is a much-needed contribution to urban research - for students, instructors and practitioners alike." -Julia Sattler, TU Dortmund University