Description: Marxism and Urban Culture takes a broad view of Marx's legacy and applies it to cultural practices and products from across the globe. Cities explored include Bologna, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mahalla al-Kubra, Mexico City, Montreal...
Brief description: Les Roberts is a reader in Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK and is Co-Director of the Centre for Culture and Everyday Life. The core focus of his work is situated within the interdisciplinary fields of spatial anthropology/spatial humanities, cultural memory and urban cultural studies. He is author/editor of a number of books including Film, Mobility and Urban Space (2012), Mapping Cultures (2012), Sites of Popular Music Heritage (2014), Locating the Moving Image (2014), and Deep Mapping (2016). His most recent monograph, Spatial Anthropology: Excursions in Liminal Space, was published in 2018.
Review Quotes:
"This is a bold, thoughtful, and transformative book on 'the urban' as a point of encounter that enables an interdisciplinary understanding and transcending of alienation in urban culture from a Marxist point of view. It is required reading for anyone seeking to challenge the 'dematerialising' condition of urban culture in and beyond the academy." --Adam David Morton, Professor of Political Economy, University of Sydney
"A wide-ranging and compelling set of essays, which demonstrate the continuing importance of spatial theory in the political interpretation of books and films. This rich and evocative collection unearths both the spectacular and mundane political life of cities as diverse as Vienna, Osaka, and Liverpool, and follows a multitude of characters as they navigate the radical possibilities of their times. As serious as it shows the study of space and power to be, this is also an enjoyable travelogue through the political geographies of the capitalist city." --Donald McNeill, professor of urban and cultural geography, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University