Günter H. Lenz Livres

The volume explores the challenges posed by versions of a new metropolitanism and cosmopolitanism in the age of postfordism, globalization, and postmodernity in a comparative transatlantic perspective. It addresses the revisions of the value-laden contrasting notions of the 'European" and the 'American city," as they manifest themselves in two prominent, though in many ways different metropolitan cities - New York City and Berlin - that have played crucial, changing, but also 'atypical" roles in their respective societies throughout modernity and have a vital tradition of transnational, cosmopolitan urban culture. For the 1990s, a decade of deep social, political, and cultural transformations, they provide important case studies for pursuing the crucial questions of a redefinition and semantic reconfiguration of public spaces, of the topographies of power, of the visual order of urban design, of the social role of public culture, of the meanings of citizenship, of the politics of memory, of the new politics of cultural difference, and of the workings and visions of a new metropolitan cultural imaginary as articulated in new multi- and intercultural modes of the mass media and the literary strategies of 'new ethniCities" in urban fiction. The essays are by distinguished American and European scholars from a range of academic disciplines, written from different cross-cultural, comparative, and transdisciplinary perspectives.

This volume delves into urban representations emphasizing visuality and movement across literature, film, migration, tourism, and social movements. It features essays that examine the materiality of the visual in architecture, art, film, and photography, alongside its imaginative aspects in literature. Urban spaces are portrayed as contact zones for diverse ethnic and social groups, often translocal and displaced rather than tied to specific territories. The essays analyze the hybrid texts about New York City, reflecting the city's "creative energy." They contribute to understanding the cultural dynamics of contemporary urban fiction, film, and related discourses. The collection includes discussions on themes such as terrorism and counternarratives in the context of 9/11, the fragmented representations of New York in Martin Scorsese's works, and the politics of space and community in art. It also addresses gender and race in urban narratives, transnational perspectives in film and fiction, and the re-envisioning of metropolitan identities. The essays explore the interplay of visibility and invisibility in urban life, examining how narratives shape and reflect the complexities of contemporary cities. Through these varied analyses, the volume offers insights into the evolving nature of urban experiences and representations.

'Raum' sei hier als epistemologische Kategorie gesetzt. Sie ordnet das kulturelle Zueinander, Miteinander, Gegeneinander in einer Synchronie der Zeiten und in deren Hybridisierungen. 'Urbanität' ist ihr Focus spätestens seit der Moderne, allemal in der Postmoderne. Das Zählwerk der Digitalisierung ist ihr längst eingeschrieben, und es globalisert Raumvorstellungen wie Verräumlichung der Geschichte postkolonial. 'New York' ist Phantasma und Faszinosum solcher Vorgänge: ist ein 'Weltinnenraum' (Rilke) par excellence. Literatur bezeugt das; mehr noch, Literatur wird Agentur dieser Prozesse; ja, solche Prozesse vermitteln die Methodik des Schreibens selbst. (Lebenswelten auf ihrer Skala von Verfall und Emergenz treten literarisch hervor und wieder ab, und eine Kartographie New Yorks aus dem Esprit der Literatur heraus ist zugleich Ethnographie). So leben wir dahin. Viele Schriftsteller sind Gewährsleute dafür, z. B. Siri Hustvedt und Paul Auster.

Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten wichtiger amerikanischer Autoren, u.a. E. Hemingway, J. Updike und T. Morrison, die die kulturelle Vielfalt des Meelting-Pots USA widerspiegeln.