Issue 3: The Metropole by Isaac Turner

Durham Review of Books Literature, Politics & Culture

Issue 03 -‐ March 9th 2015 -‐ £4

EDITORIAL Welcome, Readers, to the third issue of the Durham Review of Books. It is rather fitting that the current issue – with its theme of The Metropole – should be released now, at the close of Epiphany term. It is a time of industriousness, pressure, and tension for us students, concepts which take on a palpable immediacy when exploring an urban environment. It reminds many of us that, regardless of its generally unimposing nature, Durham can still inspire and provoke us in a manner unique to cities. It is our hope that this collection of essays will allow a sober reflection on the awe-inspiring and often understated qualities of cities worldwide; qualities that are easily under-appreciated when we are thrust into the belly of the beast, so to speak. It is my great pleasure to announce the addition of a Letters section, where readers like yourselves have contributed their thoughts and criticisms of articles contained in the previous issue (which dealt with the subject of Myth). It has always been the aim of the DRB to arouse curiosity, debate, and even vehement disagreement, so we are all naturally excited to consider your feedback. We are also aware that given the nature of this publication, and the standard of critique that we always aim for, a certain air of inaccessibility is an unfortunate yet very possible consequence felt by our readership. It can be hard to gain a fair measure of an author merely by reading one of their works, and as such we emphatically urge you all to get in touch with your (more informal) feedback and criticisms, even if you wish for them to remain between you, ourselves, and a computer screen. We like to think of ourselves as a reasonable and receptive bunch, so please do test that theory via email, your views will be warmly accommodated. I wish you all the best of luck in the forthcoming exams, but for the moment, bury your academic worries and enjoy the fruits of our – and your – labours. Ben Kirk, Isaac Turner and Nikki Motohashi Editors

This magazine’s contributors were Albert Gordon, Claire Ogley, Isaac Turner, Verity Rimmer, Harriet Walsh, Jessica Platt, Emily Sporik, Flavia Cahn, Nikki Motohashi, Elizabeth Buckheit, Nathan Watson, Josh Eaton and Heidi Marchant. Many thanks also to Sam Jewitt, for the cover design. Printed by printondemand.com using environmentally sustainable sources. Published independently in March 2015 by The DRB Society in Durham, UK.

CONTENTS Letters

The Square and Protest Movements Albert Gordon

The Romantic City Claire Ogley

Los Angeles: Glitz, Grit, and Gentrification Flavia Cahn

Exploring Depth: Cities and their Undergrounds Harriet Walsh

Reflections and Transformations: The Impact of Public Art on Urban Space

[Long-form Essay]

Jessica Platt The Underestimated Power of the Mundane in Thought and Literature Isaac Turner

City of Lakes: The Politics of Memory Emily Sporik

London in Literature: A Whirlwind History Verity Rimmer

The Transience of Urban Attachment Ben Kirk

Suiting A Habitat: Narrating My Walk, Walking Through A Narration Joshua Eaton (York University)

LETTERS If you would like to write a 200-300 word response to one of the articles in this issue, in the style of the letters on the following pages, then please send it via email to i.j.turner@durham.ac.uk.

The Myth of Consistency: A Response to Ben Kirk’s ‘The Inconsistency of Religious Myths’ by ELIZABETH BUCKHEIT I believe in God. Or, more specifically, I believe, as St. Anselm said, in ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived.’ In the academic and secular world, I seem to be a dwindling minority - how possibly, after the triumph of the Enlightenment, do we reconcile ourselves with the mysticism and inconsistencies of religion? I think the flaw is the widely accepted view of reconciliation as our goal. If God is the absolute, we cannot possibly hope to understand Him (for lack of a better pronoun). Any ability for us to determine a moral code or find a way to conceptualize the world will be inherently flawed as we are mortal and finite. We cannot escape contradiction or incompleteness. Even in the scientific realm, there will always be things which we do not yet know and things that we cannot hope to ever know. And it is here that we must rely on faith, in the explicitly religious sense or otherwise. I don’t conceptualize faith as blind trust, though some certainly do. Nor do I think it necessarily requires a religious backing. Rather, for me, faith is the acceptance of your own perception of the world as incomplete. Therefore, we must act on the belief that our ideas and interpretations are right and good with what we have on hand. When new information is presented, new scientific ideas unearthed, we recalibrate and continue to move forward. This is complicated when we begin to consider organized religion. If we accept each belief system as true, binding and complete the moral and logical questions and inconsistencies do become apparent. It becomes so easy to open the door to ignorance and his terrible comrades. As humans, we could never create an ideal and contained spiritual system. After determining our own relationship with God (including the choice of non-belief) , all we can do is pick an ethical system and take the myths, mistakes, and lessons that come with it with a grain of salt. When presented with a problem or new information, we can reject bits and pieces of our system and add new ones. We move forward. Secular or no, we exist with faith.

Spiritual Healing: A Response to Flavia Cahn’s ‘Reassessing Capitalism: The Myth of Capitalist Virtue’ by NIKKI MOTOHASHI I initially found Flavia’s argument completely convincing: her analysis of left-wing political thought and her myriad examples of modern day antagonism towards capitalist practices combined to provide an effective criticism of those who deem capitalism the pinnacle of human accomplishment. However, I was disheartened to hear that one of her sources – The Spirit Level – is a book that has received many less than favourable reviews in the mainstream press. A quick search will bring up the kind of criticisms that mar its reputation. Charles Moore disparages it as ‘more of a socialist tract than an objective analysis of poverty’ in the Daily Telegraph and The Scotsman’s Gerry Hassan undermines the book’s claim that ‘more equal societies almost always do better’ by terming it a ‘universal, sweeping statement’, and one largely unsubstantiated by most of the data Wilson and Picket actually present. Yet this is not to say that The Spirit Level is without its share of ardent supporters – Boyd Tonkin, writing in The Independent, commends the book’s crucial contribution in catalysing ‘a debate about the route to a kinder, fairer nation’ and the New Statesmen included it in their list of the top ten books of the decade. The authors themselves have rebutted their critics with proof of peer reviews and full references, arguing that detractors are objecting to The Spirit Level on an ideological basis as opposed to an educated one. This on-going conversation between right-wing responses and left-wing counterresponses makes it very difficult for someone without access to first-hand data to distinguish between substantiated criticisms and misleading claims made solely for political purposes. For me, however, facing up to inconsistencies or deficiencies in The Spirit Level and anti-capitalist texts with a similar aim does not make their conclusions completely void. Given the unfeasibility of isolating income inequality as the cause of lower standards of living in a given country, watertight statistical analysis is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Whilst analysing data is important, therefore, we should not let circular arguments distracts us from real action and necessary progress.

The Necessity of Compromise: A Response to Nikki Motohashi’s ‘The Myth of Monogamy’ by HEIDI MARCHANT (King’s College, London) I disagree with your argument that monogamy is not a ‘natural and comfortable contract for human beings’, apparently proven by the fact that adultery has existed in every society. That people have extramarital relations can be explained by the fact that

humans have traditionally separated love from marriage, resulting in marriages in which desire does not exist, and marriages that are in the interests of the families of both parties rather than in the interests of the individuals themselves. Thus, sexual desire has to be satisfied outside of the marital bed. Nor do I believe that the naturalness of polygamy can be proven by the fact people in 'long-term, loving relationships' often experience ‘a mysterious loss of libido’; if polygamy really were natural to humans, wouldn’t they feel dissatisfied in the honeymoon period of their relationships, as well as in the later stages? I concede that for some, a loving relationship in which desire exists is not enough. They must always have the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of a new sexual conquest. But they are a minority, not a majority. Even if they were the majority, would the acceptance of the practice of polygamy be good for society as a whole? Admittedly, it may result in greater tolerance for other stigmatised relationships, such as group marriages, homosexual relationships or relationships where there is a significant age gap between the people involved. Women who become pregnant outside of relationships would also likely suffer less prejudice. On the other hand, monogamist societies prevail because monogamous relationships give people certainty and security, and allow them to focus on issues other than finding a partner. Widespread practice of polygamy may mean that parents, forever chasing after someone new, would invest less time in their children’s development. In a polygamous society, heterosexual women would likely be forced to bear the brunt of childrearing responsibilities as the weakened bond between husband and wife as a result of extramarital relations may result in men having a lesser sense of familial duty. While extramarital relationships are certainly discouraged, and even legislated against, I disagree that there is a societal expectation of lifetime monogamy. Couples often remain in loveless marriages not because they are afraid of being shunned by society if they divorce, but because it benefits them financially to remain together, or because they cannot face the hassle of divorce or the prospect of living alone. Consider the number of pre-nuptial agreements now made: couples see separation as a real possibility and are no longer afraid to face up to it. Society has popularised “serial monogamy”, in which commitment or exclusivity is maintained, but is usually confined to a limited period. Serial monogamy gives a sense of certainty and security, but for a limited time - this is the kind of compromise people make for having greater novelty and romantic excitement in their lives. Indeed, serial monogamy gives, albeit to a lesser degree, the excitement that the practice of polygamy would provide, but comes without the drawbacks of the latter – namely, the diluted bond between husband and wife that leads to a weaker family unit. Therefore, while polygamy may be natural to humans, serial monogamy, a form of monogamy accepted in our current society, is a more than sufficient compromise. 5

matter of days, being brought together via shared goals and the development of mutual respect for different interests, created an almost utopian forum for discussion and solidarity.

The Square and Protest Movements .

BY ALBERT GORDON albert.gordon@durham.ac.uk

It was noticeable then, that in one of the first crackdowns against protesters across the region, Bahraini officials decided not simply to crush the tents and and makeshift homes of demonstrators at the main site of Pearl Roundabout, but to destroy the roundabout itself. Such reasoning is not illogical: civilian unrest during the uprisings was not defined by specific figures or organised political parties, but instead by place names and famous landmarks. Four years later, Egypt’s Tahrir Square evokes a sentiment in a way not dissimilar to that of New York’s Zuccotti Park, with regard to the way simple location names came to signify and represent the wider aspirations and demands of the protestors. These movements belong to those civilians who take part in the political process in the most basic of ways, through organisation and demonstration, and those civilians become in turn represented by the names of the public spaces that they claim as their own in the process. Destruction of such spaces denotes a deeper sense of failure, of the revolutionary ideas that brought demonstrators to the area and the tactics that were utilised.

In her article for Issue 2 of the Durham Review of Books, Flavia Cahn cited the actions of the Occupy movement in an assessment of modern day Capitalism, and in doing so described one of the tactics of the organised protest - setting up camp in an accessible, recognisable space like St Pauls. More widely, the public plazas of a city, the civic centres at the heart of the metropole, are unique in the challenges they present to both political leaders and regimes. Regardless of the system of rule or institutions present, the usage of demonstrations in geopolitically advantageous spaces to gain notoriety and publicity has a rich tradition; British memory may recall poll-tax protests in Trafalgar, whilst discussions around civil liberties in the late 20th Century were informed by the protests in Tiananmen. Indeed, some of the greatest political victories of the previous century relied upon mass movements residing in familiar surroundings, such as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More recently, it was true of nearly every country in the Middle East and North African region to experienced political turmoil between 2010 and 2014 that it was the Square which came to epitomise such turmoil. These places, often saturated with historical and religious significance, developed from simple meeting grounds to entire communities in the space of weeks. Eric Hobsbawm was noted for his assessment that, alongside sex, public demonstration triggers intense emotional reactions and a sense of purpose that is addictive to the citizen; unlike sex however, protesting is a prolonged collective action, not a short and essentially individual one. The experience of building communities from scratch in a

Alongside the physical, the extent to which governments increasingly face challenges from organisation in the virtual sphere is a more modern element of the process; if the Gulf War was the first ’24 hour conflict’, with heavy media coverage and its associated impact, then the Iranian Green Wave of 2009 was the first ‘Twitter Revolution’, due to reliance by protesters on the site for real-time updates. Yet whilst authoritarian figures understand that social networks serve as dangers to their erroneous regimes, functioning as tools to facilitate the potency of the politicisation of large public spaces for demonstrations, 6

the elevation of such outlets as one of the key tools of modern protest is not without complication. The relative ease with which information about meeting places and times can be dispersed in 2015 brings the benefit of reaching larger proportions of the citizenry than ever before, but has the adverse effect of popularising those marches and protests that exist without a plan for what occurs after their goals are reached. Social media serves to enhance modern political organisation in the same way it detracts from it; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;clicktivismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; undermines the actions of those who take to the streets and exhibit their anger, by making those who sign a petition or send a grumbling tweet feel as though their work is as important in the wider political discourse; and more dangerously may paint those who do leave the comfort of their homes as the more extreme or fringe elements of a movement.

Must the Square be the target of violence for it to be successful, for it to gain enough attention to force the hand of the regime being targeted? The events of Euromaidan, the largest disruption of political order in Europe for a number of years, have shown that regardless of how the success of the modern protest is measured, the concert within which these take place remains as public as ever. Large and open spaces are chosen for physical demonstrations because of their accessibility and the extent to which they occupy the public consciousness. If it may now be said that 2011 was the largest example of civilian unrest around the world since perhaps 1989, ranging from movements like the Occupy protesters to the Arab revolutionaries, then all of these mobilisations share a commonality proven to be effective throughout history - the utilisation of the Square, the beating heart of the Metropole.

Further Reading

Wu Hang: 'Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space' Aya Nassar: 'The Symbolism of 'Tahrir Square' [Dohain Institute] Jeroen Gunning and Ilan Zvi Baron: 'Why Occupy a Square? People, Protests and Movements in the Egyptian Revolution'

moral judgement attached. London was also the centre of the British empire, and many of politically radical poets rejected the city for this reason, preferring the idealised countryside because it did not possess imperial connotations.

The Romantic City BY CLAIRE OGLEY c.j.ogley@durham.ac.uk In a dichotomy still existing today, a major concern for Romantic writers was the tension between the emerging city and ancient rural landscapes. This idea had existed for centuries, in the form of the Latin separation of life into 'otium' and 'negotium', which split time between leisure and business affairs respectively. In the original definition, the pleasure and satisfaction acquired from simple rural retirement is seen as more valuable than the work that would be pursued in the city. However, writers considered an equal balance of both to be important. It was used to describe the growing Renaissance court and can be traced through Romantic poetry - which was arguably the first to assign it a moral judgement - and on to the Dickensian demonisation of the metropolis. I intend to concentrate on Romantic poetry by William Blake and William Wordsworth concerned with the archetypal city, London, and consider what role their work had in explaining and furthering this metaphysical gulf.

Wordsworth's work, such as “I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud”, firmly aligns him with the pastoral idyll in the public consciousness. Much of this is present in his work, where he tends to script the city according to the Romantic tradition of celebrating the rural over the urban. In Michael, Luke, “in the dissolute city gave himself/ to evil courses: ignominy and shame”. Here, city is a trap that honest country folk can fall into under adverse economic conditions, since Luke originally goes to work off a debt. However, his sonnet “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” beholds the city at its most radiant in “the beauty of the morning”. The traditional markers of civilisation; “ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples” lie “all bright and glittering in the smokeless air”. It is no coincidence that this is London in its most natural and least city-like state when “that mighty heart is lying still”, depopulated and almost immobile. In contrast to William Blake's “charter'd Thames”, here, the “river glideth at his own sweet will”, implying that the natural elements of the city's landscape are neutral or even positive until they come under human control.

Larry Peer describes the “tension between the city and the country and the possession of an ideal urban space that powers much of the metaphorical positioning of Romantic art”. This is the paradox of the city that the poets recognised; that it is a vital and necessary meeting place of minds, politics and art, but simultaneously attracts all that is worst about people and facilitates their vices. As such, many displayed an ambiguous attitude to the city, admitting its undeniable contribution to art and enlightenment whilst also portraying it as the epicentre of corruption, decay and immorality, and the antithesis of the good that could be found in nature. This often came with a scathing

London by Blake is a reversal of Peer's reference to the “ideal urban space”: describing the city as the location of the “the cry of every man” clearly denounces the modern city. The evils in London arise from human “mind forged manacles” and in particular institutions such as the church, the army and the monarchy . In the “hapless sigh of the soldier” and the “blood down palace walls”, references to war and 8

empire-based oppression can be inferred. The repetition of 'chartered' and 'marks' in the first stanza is jarring: “chartered streets” are mapped, but the secondary meaning of the word, 'owned by corporations', points to the association of the city with economy and business, implying the limiting influence that the repetition also imposes. However, although these institutions are entrenched in the capital and are undoubtedly criticised , the unrelenting ghastliness of this view is uncharacteristic of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience as a whole, which is a collection that usually makes sure to couple stark reality with hopeful allusions. This has therefore led some to view it as not an actual representation of the city but a Revelations style vision that frustrates literal interpretation. The “midnight streets” certainly seem to be a precursor for T.S.

Eliot's apocalyptic necropolis in The Waste Land. The focus on the victims of human immorality in this vision - the “hapless soldier” and “youthful harlot” and the network of institutions that trap them - rather than the city itself, reinforces the point that it is people who create the morality of the city. Romantic poetry makes use of the tropes of rural and urban to discuss the modern city on the brink of the Industrial Revolution, and relate its qualities to the all that is desirable or otherwise in human nature. In at least the two poems discussed, the negative moral connotations of the city are attributed to its population or, to put it more glibly, the Romantic poets’ love for rural space stems from the fact that there are fewer people there.

Further Reading Romanticism and the City ed. Larry Peer Romanticism: An Anthology ed. Duncan Wu Walter L. Reed: 'London Calling: The Urban Chronotope of Romanticism' [Nonsite]

mansions of Malibu and Beverly Hills, these newcomers installed themselves in what have come to be known as “loft conversions”, upscale apartments carved into deteriorating buildings.

Los Angeles: Glitz, Grit, and Gentrification BY FLAVIA CAHN f.c.cahn@durham.ac.uk

Downtown’s appeal as a ‘cool’ neighborhood is a recent development. After its golden age in the 1920s, surburbia grew in importance and the development and investment in Downtown halted. Downtown became a neighborhood for low income renters, plagued by crime, gang violence, and homelessness. Its transformation into a wealthy and trendy neighborhood has significantly changed its character. Nevertheless, Downtown’s history cannot be erased by some fancy boutiques, nor can a luxury apartment building cover some of its uglier attributes. In fact, the gentrification of Downtown has brought the two sides of Los Angeles, prosperity and poverty, into collision with one another. Gourmet vegan restaurants sit smugly, just spitting distance from homeless shelters. Notorious street corners where drug deals were made or rival gang members shot, now replaced by a yoga studio, or an extravagant sushi bar.

Many people are puzzled by the city of Los Angeles. It is a fairly new city, arguably without a centre, comprised of numerous neighborhoods loosely tied together by vast freeway systems. It is a city that suffers from enormous inequality, with a population ranging from the celebrity to the homeless. L.A. is as glitzy as it is gritty, rich in diversity, and yet segregated along lines of race, wealth, and location. LA’s richest and poorest may feel like they live in entirely different cities – each have a completely different experience. But perhaps something is changing here. A huge increase in gentrification of previously neglected and underdeveloped areas is bringing the myriad denizens of LA into contact with one another. Gentrification is the process by which certain urban areas attract new residents, and experience an increase in rent and cost of living as a result of the subsequent injection of wealth. Consequently, the local community is fundamentally altered by the arrival of new businesses and entertainment venues catered to the newcomers, often alienating the longerserving residents.

Of course, some degree of interaction between the varying socio-economic groups of LA preceded gentrification. Latino men and Latina women, often underprivileged immigrants from countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, have commuted for hours to clean kitchens or tend gardens for the inhabitants of some of the wealthiest areas. They eventually return home to their own impoverished neighborhoods, miles away from where they work.

Downtown LA in the late 1990s saw the construction of the Staples Centre, the L.A. Live complex, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall inspire fresh economic opportunity and interest in this specific district. These venues helped Downtown evolve into a place of high-end entertainment, which offered luxury alongside the pervasive urban grit. Hotels, restaurants, and businesses met the demand generated by the influx of affluent people as they flocked from the suburbs. Instead of the expansive villas and

But what is happening in Downtown LA is not just contact, it is a series of clashes and confrontations. The role of conflict should not be understated. The Arts District of Downtown LA is representative of the friction caused by gentrification—an area where skirmishes between an increasingly refurbished population and the local

homeless people are taking place. Here, a new and trendy area is sprouting adjacent to the infamous Skid Row. Walking around the Arts District this winter, I was reminded that just a few blocks from where we were, not only were people living on the street, but their ties to Skid Row were threatened by the rising tides of a new neighborhood. They face the ignominious prospect of eviction, exiled to make way for, say, a frozen yogurt shop. City ordinances and police presence has steadily increased the pressure on Skid Row, as developers get ready to expand the success of gentrification.

pre-existing area; instead it is invested in new projects offering no benefits for the pre-gentrification residents. Crime, in the same way as poverty, is transferred from one residential quarter to another; no real solution is found to address the underlying causes. Lastly, gentrificationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hopeful idea of producing a diverse and integrated community certainly remains to be achieved in LA. Class distinction and polarisation within communities often follow the rejuvenation, which causes fragmentation and possible conflict between 'native' inhabitants and those who seem to have invaded their turf.

Some have backed the process as an effective antidote to homelessness and poverty. Mixing people from different socio-economic backgrounds is thought to help the dissipation of poverty, therefore easing the strain on public resources. Moreover, gentrification has been praised for bringing investment and economic growth to previously neglected areas. This economic boom has indirectly lowered crime rates by changing the character of neighborhoods, thus diffusing violence and danger. Any city would benefit from the restoration of previously dilapidated districts and decreasing crim, whilst a more varied community fosters increased understanding and appreciation of diversity in general.

What is arguably a more serious threat, however, is displacement. Gentrification is exponentially increasing property values and the cost of living, which often prove impossible for local residents to keep up with. Eventually, long-standing tenants are forced out of their homes, having failed to keep up with the soaring cost of rent. The entire personality of a neighborhood is transformed: families are evicted and whole communities dislocated and disenfranchised from their cultural and/or historical ties to that place.

In contrast to all the above advantages of gentrification, I would argue that the perceived benefits are not difficult to pick apart. Firstly, gentrification does little to actually reduce poverty or homelessness it simply disperses them to new areas. And while the local economy may be strengthened by an influx of population, many smaller businesses are swamped, outcompeted by new companies catering better to the needs of the new residents. Little of the new money is actually directed towards improving the conditions of the

Gentrification in Downtown is bringing different sides of LA together. The city can be proud of its diverse and varied population, but the changes are evidently failing to create an environment of mutual benefit. On the contrary, Downtown is pandering to a new community now, and the neighborhood is experiencing the displacement of residents who cannot afford to stay in their 'native' districts . The gentrification of Downtown LA highlights the devastating inequality across the city and reveals the oppressive nature of urban development, whereby the rich benefit and the poorest suffer. Perhaps in the future, the city of Los Angeles can work towards supporting a new model of gentrification, one where all of LAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents benefit. 11

Exploring Depth: Cities and their Undergrounds BY HARRIET WALSH h.e.walsh@durham.ac.uk What is the allure of a city? Is it perhaps the chaotic thrum of people on their secret missions, is it the vitality of the immortal, ever-evolving student population, or the buzzing juxtaposition of buskers and bankers? It might be true to say that all of these things appeal to our curiosity, underpinned by the fact that urbanity is at the centre of the modern world. Urbanity plays a pivotal role in our societies, making or breaking global economies, interfering with international prosperity, and even determining worldwide welfare. All of this proceeds irrespective of individual perceptions, positive or otherwise. You could be a London lawyer working in the Gherkin, or a brooding artist pondering in a Somerset pub, and still be affected by any one of the world’s cities. The almost overpowering globalisation of the twenty first century is as restrictive as it is liberating, yet people all over the world cannot subdue their thirst for an inner-city experience at some point in their lives. With all this going on at ground level, it is easy to see how other parts of cities are left forgotten. There is certainly more than meets the eye in every city you could possibly visit. It would be fair to say that most people, when thinking of a city, urban centre, or metropolis, would not immediately think of what lies beneath, both physically and metaphorically. However, this is often what adds true depth (no pun intended) to a city, its history, and its identity. London, the historic metropole of the British Empire, provides an initial illustration. London, of course, became the mother-city to those whom Britain conquered at the time of Empire, and so

the fact that London has a Roman name to reflect its Roman origins, Londinium, is interesting; hindsight provides us with the delicious yet destructive irony of the historical cycle of invasion. Yet, still it is the underground aspects of London which make it particularly interesting as a cultural and economic capital of the world, rather than its role in history alone. The most obvious and literal subterranean element is of course the London Underground. This innovative use of the space underneath a city came as a technological revelation in the nineteenth century. Whilst the gas-lit carriages and steam trains of the 1800s are a memory of the past, their legacy lives on throughout the globe; with plans for unused tube stations to be transformed into underground cycle routes, this historical ingenuity continues to have new impacts on the present. Whilst all of this may be true, there are many vital yet almost invisible elements to the London’s more general underground which we are less familiar with. For example, over three hundred different languages are spoken in London schools alone, with sublanguages always emerging and developing. The cockney rhyming slang, popular in the last few centuries, is unfortunately fading away, , as highlighted by Professor Fox of Queen Mary College in his article 'Trouble and Strife for Cockney Rhyming Slang'. This may be a result of the influx of different cultures and vocabularies: London’s multiculturalism has birthed numerousand varied linguistic developments. This obviously goes hand in hand with a variety of contemporary subcultures present in the city, all of which are continually evolving. Whilst it is true that multiculturalism is often celebrated, this constant flux makes its actual impacts less blatant than those of the concrete ‘Underground’. However, it remains vital to London’s identity: in fact, the figurative could even be more influential than the literal, in the sense that the linguistic developments of London’s metaphorical 12

underground impact on thousands of people’s lives in how they think and communicate.

yet it has now been transformed into a tourist attraction. This transition illustrates how a city’s underground can genuinely evolve simultaneously with the city’s history and culture. The development from a Cold War defence to an instrument of the quasi-capitalist system of modern China by extension shows how the underground can reflect a society, its history, and its development.

Whilst these often overlooked elements of multicultural London are due to a mixture of accident and history, international examples of other underground enterprises are far more deliberate. Take, for example, Disney World Florida. There are secret tunnels underneath Disney World to keep supplies hidden and to preserve the mystique of the performers, yet, the damp nature of Florida’s ground level made it impossible for Disney to dig down. So, he built up instead. This foreplanning and dedication to what would become one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions illustrates both the malleability and necessity of the underground for a multitude of purposes.

Like some sort of subterranean butterfly effect, the way in which the cities of the world work create remarkable impacts on us all in both explicit and implicit ways. Moreover, the evidence above suggests that it is not necessarily what is visible to the eye that makes a city interesting. Whether the underground is literal or metaphorical, deliberate or accidental, it certainly plays a fundamental role in establishing and developing the zeitgeists and identities of cities around the globe. We are being perpetually propelled forward by what lies beneath, without us necessarily even realising it.

Another example of a deliberate yet covert system is the underground city in Beijing; a Cold War bomb shelter. This ‘Underground Great Wall’ is deeply steeped in modern military history, and

Further Reading Jean Paul Goddard: Urban Underground Space and the Benefits of Going Underground [ita-aites.org] Anoop Singh et al. Inclusive Growth, Institutions and the Underground Economy [IMF] Professor Steve Fox: 'Trouble and Strife for Cockney Rhyming Slang' [The Times]

Reflections and Transformations: The Impact of Public Art on Urban Space BY JESSICA PLATT j.a.platt@durham.ac.uk When, in April 2006, a wooden rocket crashed in Waterloo, smashing up the tarmac of the street in what looked like an unexpected alien attack, few people knew what to think. When a gigantic, mechanical elephant arrived to greet it, a journey that required the closing of roads and removal of lampposts and traffic lights to make room for its enormous progress, London was transformed into a fairy tale world. The French production company Royal de Luxe had brought a magical giant puppet show to London. For the next three days, the centre of the city became the playground for the Sultan’s Elephant and the girl of his dreams, mesmerising and enchanting everyone who saw. As one blogger aptly summed up, “Obviously the question of Why and WTF would be the first words out of one’s lips. Do not bother yourself with such questions, just accept the awesomeness”. Reclaiming the streets of London was a revelation of the power that art could hold, and an apt reminder of the importance and joy of magic in one of the capitalist capitals of the world. When Artichoke, the company that organised The Sultan’s Elephant’s trip to London, arrived in Durham three years later for the first of the Lumiere festivals, we were once again awestruck by the magnificent power of public art in transforming a city. With installations such as ‘Fete’ and ‘Solar’, parts of the city were taken and transformed into new beautiful worlds while ‘Elephantastic’, the 3D projection of an elephant stamping around on Elvet Bridge, dislocated the familiar, exploring the strangeness of a

wild animal in an urban context. It invited the audience to look at their city anew, in the context of this incongruous creature. The installations that have lit up Durham at the last three Lumiere festivals haven’t just transformed the city; they have also reflected it, incorporating the changing urban landscape into the art and capturing its history, with installations such as the miners vests. Illuminated with candles and hanging suspended from the ceiling of the cathedral, they served as a reminder of Durham’s heritage. One of the most interesting approaches to the changes that this city has seen was in 2013, when Groupe LAPs created a spectacle on the former miners hall on North Road with 80 LED stick men, a visual narrative which told the story of miners reclaiming their Miner’s Hall after arriving from the past to discover it has become a nightclub. The story followed the stick figures as they took over the building and began to dance to the music. Unable to keep still, people wiggled and laughed as the stickmen moved up and down the building, dancing along to music featuring Durham County Youth Big Band, and left feeling elated, uplifted by the playful convergence of past and present. After 3 days the festival packs up, disappears and leaves behind it a strange silence, an obvious space so recently filled by thousands of tourists and many installations. But the memory of magic lingers on: the legacy of transient and ephemeral events such as Lumiere and the Sultan’s elephant is evident in the inspiration felt by all who experienced the event, as well as the economic boost from the influx of tourism. Permanent public art impacts the city in a different way. Often only a single installation, the reaction is usually far less extreme. When the Corpus Christi clock appeared at the corner of Trumpington Street in Cambridge, people were initially unsure of what to make of the monstrous grasshopper, slowly and relentlessly moving against the unyielding 14

progression of time. Although many were frustrated by the grandeur and inaccessibility of a clock that tells time in the most complicated way possible, people soon realised that it was difficult to walk past without stopping and admiring its steady progress. With its terribly complicated ‘ripples-on-a-pond’ design (which had to be created by explosions in a vacuum before being covered in pure gold) combined with archaic clockwork technology, the clock perfectly reflects the Cambridge University colleges with their painstaking traditions juxtaposed against cutting edge technology. It has brought some of the magic of the colleges, usually concealed behind the closed doors of the university, out into the public eye, allowing the university and the city to become more of a unified whole rather than two separate, begrudging entities. The unifying power of art is used to impact urban space all over the world. A project initiated by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in early 2014 is working to support communities in Northern Ireland and the border areas of the republic: the aim is to tackle sectarianism and racism through creative engagement in the production of public art. This project aims to deliver 80 pieces of artwork by the end of 2015, the creation of which will help improve community and cohesion, therefore regenerating areas through the arts. It is also designed to be an opportunity for the people involved to explore what culture means to them and their community while also promoting tolerance by involving young people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. The likelihood of these projects having a meaningful impact on their host communities is dramatically increased through ensuring that members of the local community are involved throughout the process. By inviting active dialogue surrounding the work being produced as opposed to simply letting the public passively observe, a sense of ownership 15

and social cohesion can be inspired amongst the people making and viewing the art. As planners, artists and architects start to take a back seat, filling the role of facilitator as opposed to expert, community driven art is taking a more prominent role in the public art arena. These installations are usually more successful, since they reflect with far greater accuracy the community in which they exist. Increased use of social media has lead to the development of a new form of public art. Crowd-sourced projects have become widespread and normal, allowing people from around the world to create art that reflects this new, highly interconnected global society. Although crowdsourcing has been around since the 1700s, and was used during 1884 when 800 volunteers worked to catalogue words for the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, new technology has created a versatile, virtual platform for communication around the world, allowing crowdsourcing to grow in popularity. Katie O’Beirne’s art project ‘New York Snaps’ began when she left a disposable camera on a bench in a New York City park, with a note attached asking people to take photos of themselves and what they saw around them. Through her Tumblr blog, Katie invited people from around the world to join her in this venture, and was able to build a body of work containing pictures that reflect cities from all around the world. This project, and many like it, has used crowd-funding to pay for its creation. In an economy where art funding has taken so many budget cuts, with the UK government grant-in-aid to the Arts Council decreasing by 21 million between 2014 and 2015, crowd-funding is becoming ever more popular among artists. ‘URBAN RENIEWAL: A CrowdFunded Public Art Project’ was undertaken by six artists who wanted to use public art to help tackle urban blight in the city of Oakland, California. The aim of

this project was to use large-scale public murals which incorporated elements of graffiti art with classical illustration and fine art techniques to improve the appearance of the city and reaffirm the cultural value and significance of the city. Using Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website, they surpassed their $5,000 goal, raising $5,563 with the help of 111 backers. Crowd-funded public art projects present a unique opportunity for people to literally take ownership of the project, being involved from the early stages. This involvement is key in ensuring that public art is relevant and appropriate for the city in which it is situated. Architect James Wines coined the term ‘plop art’ in 1969 to describe nonsensical, unattractive public art that seems to have been thoughtlessly ‘plopped’ into its position in a city. These art installations, such as Tony Smith’s angular, very yellow and seemingly meaningless installation, ‘Light Up’, (installed at Seagram Plaza, New York in 1971) offer no engagement with the people that encounter them, and often lead to uproar and rejection from the viewers. A new view on ‘plop art’ was offered when, in 2006, Anish Kapoor’s ‘Cloud Gate’ was installed in the Millennium Park in Chicago. Although the seemingly fluid sculpture looked as though it really could have been ‘plopped’ into position, it’s highly shined surface which reflected its surroundings allowed it to incorporate

itself into the environment, offering up a distorted but familiar view of the every day world, giving the viewer a new, tilted perspective of life with every step. Beneath the sculpture, an area separate from reality is created, a place of reflection into which people can freely walk, allowing its audience to interact and use it, in a way that unsuccessful ‘plop art’ is incapable of doing. This reflection, whether literal or metaphorical, is vital in giving public art meaning in an urban space. Public art holds great responsibility which far outweighs the importance of looking nice or filling a gap in a city. For it to be successful and in any way transformative, it must communicate the essence of the place it resides to everyone who sees it, even if only fleetingly. Whether it is a transient three day whirlwind that captures and enraptures a city before leaving without a trace - except for a very pedantic clock and a vague realisation that even the most familiar of places can be made strange - or a permanent feature, intended to connect disparate parts of a city and regenerate those places that have been left without love for too long, its power is achieved by reflecting a truth relevant to the people or place in which it is situated, and transforming it so that meaningful knowledge can be attained.

Further Reading Samantha Lynn Alfrey: Occupy Plop Art: Public Sculpture as Site of Antagonism Saba Salman: Things That Make You go Hmmm... [The Guardian] Paul Kendall: Kickstarter: Can Crowd Funding Save Culture? [The Tielegraph]

The Underestimated Power of the Mundane in Thought and Literature BY ISAAC TURNER i.j.turner@durham.ac.uk 'What are men to rocks and mountains?' In Writing Home, Alan Bennett undermines the philosophical with the commonplace as he recounts how his friend Russell 'had never read Proust, but he had somehow taken a short cut across the allotments and arrived at the same conclusions'. In this subversion, Bennett wades into the territory of the everyday, an underappreciated and yet richly prevalent feature of canonical prose writing. Initially, its importance can be found in the work of the French-Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, who denounced what he saw as an imperative of the metropole, the metro-boulot-dodo (subway-work-sleep), as an enforced capitalist banality which prevents moments of revelation and clarity. He presented an alternative, the more self-fulfilled human or l’homme totale, as an ideal. In the reclaiming of the banal and mundane by individuals, we are able to celebrate a re-appropriation of everyday existence that blossoms organically from personal, creative, lived sources. This ordinary living has had a staggering influence on global thinking. As an introductory example, we can locate it in the core of the Beat Generation, a precursor to the hippie movement and an originator of many contemporary manifestations of resistance. The revolutionary Jack Kerouac laments, through the contemplative character of Japhy in The Dharma Bums, the existence of 'rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with 17

everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time'. Contrary to this American-dreaminspired blandness, the protagonist, Ray, reflects Kerouac’s own interpretation of the mundane in his desire to partake in 'the only decent activity left in the world, [...] what the Chinese call do-nothing', which he saw as resulting in 'perfect solitude'. Here, everydayness is celebrated in its simplicity and abstractedness, as going beyond a regimented, economy-driven existence. A considerably less metaphysical preoccupation with banality is seen in the diaries of Tony Benn, the socialist Labour politician. Rather than concern himself with culture, the arts and intellectualism, Benn recounts conversations and moments. A chat with a prostitute in Trafalgar Square, a pause amidst the London carry-on as he remembers his late wife Caroline, all recorded and pondered in his diaries as small micro-moments in urban existence. Peter Wilby notes in The Guardian how Benn was 'required to keep a time chart, as his father [William] did'. However, William allowed no time for 'meals, conversation or any social life'. In recording these perceived mundanities, Benn highlights his own rebellious enthusiasm for discussion, details, interaction, and thus a greater immersion in the everyday. This arguably helped him to develop his own political ideologies, as an understanding of the actual minutiae of the working-class struggle guided his socialist understanding far beyond any academic texts; he admitted himself that he only read The Communist Manifesto when it was placed in his Christmas stocking at the age of 51. As we can see from Benn’s passion for worker’s rights, explorations of everyday existence are often most compelling in the revelations of the marginalised. The intimate arguments of the eminent gender theorist Lynne Segal in 'Out of Time', her meditation on the 'pleasures and perils' of

ageing, are telling. She finds that “it is certainly the shedding of our awareness of the everyday that allows us to feel most confidently at one with the world”. In this case, it is largely through the means of mundanity that the sheer subjugation of the elderly, particularly women, is experienced. Not only are they erased from everyday interactions by a youth-obsessed media culture, but the banal pervades every element of their selfacknowledgement. This is partially the result of a blame culture based on concepts such as generational warfare and the greedy baby-boomer generation, the latter heinously allowing them the large house with conservatory extension, the comfortable sedan, the nest egg. All associated with mundane domesticity, all a reminder of the burden caused for future generations. But what happens when opportunities for positive experiences of everyday life become harder to come by? Certainly, the ageing process slowly ekes away at engagement in the domestic, the interactionary and the mundane - at least as we have defined it. But a more extreme form of exclusion from the enjoyable banalities of everyday life, prison, presents us with difficult questions. In Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj, Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova tells the eminent Slovenian philosopher

Slavoj Zizek, that a Russian prison is a site of “institutional totalitarianism, a site where thought and action become unified”. Furthermore, it is only natural that “in a community for whose creation any elite of unbounded power is de facto”, the enjoyment of mundanity is severely hindered, if not entirely eradicated by greater concerns. Orange is the New Black, the popular Netflix show based around the inmate Piper Chapman, powerfully evokes this idea through flashbacks in which Piper merely enjoys small moments, domestic fragments, chatting, intimacy. Perhaps the true essence of freedom, therefore, lies in the commonplace activities of the quotidian , and the ability to engage in even the smallest, most banal of actions. “You can find poetry in your everyday life”, attests Carol Anne Duffy. This essay does not ponder the stately, the grandiose or the magnificent. Rather, it is an overdue reminder of the power invested in the the conventional, the common and the pedestrian. Mundanity permeates our existence in ways that we seldom analyse, or understand the effects of. We must attempt to embrace and practice the art of the everyday. A famous mantra of Arthur Conan Doyle provides the most fitting conclusion: “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

Further Reading Henri Lefebvre: Critique of Everyday Life: The One-Volume Edition Lynne Segal: Out of Time: The Perils and Pleasures of Ageing Nadya Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Zizek: 'Comradery Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj

City of Lakes: The Politics of Memory BY EMILY SPORIK emily.sporik@durham.ac.uk Remembrance is not a passive act, but an inherently political process caught up in relations of power and dominance. It is never 'a quiet act of introspection or retrospection. It is a painful remembering, a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present’ (Bhaba, 1986) which can at times be violent and exclusionary. Memory has the power to both include and exclude, with practices of commemoration being used to maintain hegemonic powers or certain forms of knowledge production. If you look at the fable of the British Empire, it is full of heroic tales of explorers adventuring into exotic lands, in the name of a nation which was equally revered and feared. The heinous products of colonialism are glossed over in these accounts, eradicating the systematic oppression and exploitation of those living in the shadows of the British metropole. In the case of Bhopal, the dominant power is that of the State, which retains control over public memory and seek to shape it in a way which erases the true horrors and diverse lived experiences of the city. Today, Bhopal has largely lost its traditional title - the city of lakes - instead becoming reknown as the site of the world’s worst industrial disaster. A little after midnight on 2nd 1984, a toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, seeped out of the Union Carbide factory and into the homes of sleeping residents. Due to financial issues with the factory, health and safety equipment had been deactivated so no alarms sounded to warn people and allow for evacuation. Within three days, 8,000 people were officially declared dead as a result of this toxic gas leak, although accounts of this figure vary

from 3,800 to 15,000. The events of that night continue to haunt the lives of Bhopal’s residents, who now live in a toxic site of continual suffering and injustice. Women who were affected by the gas leak have had their breast milk contaminated by toxins, meaning that the substance which is meant to nourish their children is instead poisoning them. A new generation of Bhopalis have been born with congenital birth defects and groundwater contamination has led to polluted water supplies. Whilst horrific on their own, these physical atrocities are only half Bhopal’s tragic story, with the real horrors lying in treatment of Bhopalis on the days and years following the gas leak. Union Carbide Company has since been bought by DOW Chemical Company, who have failed to provide adequate compensation or accept liability for the events of that night. A 1989 out of court settlement provided 500 US dollars per victim, in a deal which excluded 93% of sufferers, and did not take into account the second generations of victims. Moreover, that sum in itself is not sufficient to facilitate lifelong medical treatment. DOW’s treatment of Bhopal’s victims and the running of its Bhopal factory are illustrative of larger issues in how the global south is treated by transnational corporations. Although DOW refuse to provide adequate compensation in Bhopal, it accepts liability for asbestos in US factories and has therefore set aside $2.2 billion for the global north. US factories suffered no cutbacks in safety measures whereas in the Bhopal factory, the MIC tanks were filled to nine times that of the recommended level and issues identified in safety audits were not addressed. This discrepancy is demonstrative of how transactional companies often take advantage of more lenient laws and practices in countries of the global south, where production is outsourced. Ideas of how to remember Bhopal differ 19

between the state and survivor activist groups, with each party wishing to portray the accident and aftermath in a different light. The Bhopal activist group has been transformed into a global social movement which calls for the preservation of the site, in the same way as Hiroshima and the Nazi deaths camps. Such a memorial would take in to account the different narratives of the disaster and provide a physical reminder of the human cost of the gas leak. A statue of a mother and child has alrady been erected outside the factory site and the Memories of Disaster museum (Yaad-e-Haadsa) was opened on the 20th anniversary of the disaster with exhibits of personal paraphernalia and portraits of victims. This has since inspired a similar exhibition at the Hamidia Hospital that features aborted foetuses of women who were exposed to the gas leak. The hope is that these three memorials will be incorporated into a larger museum, which will include a mixture of oral histories and material objects. In comparison, the state wishes to create a physical memorial statue for Bhopal whilst previous plans have called to make the factory site a tourist destination, despite

reports that identify the area as impossible to detoxify. The state’s approach to remembering Bhopal has been criticised as ritualistic and symbolic. This is further demonstrated by fact that the anniversary of the gas-leak is commemorated as a local holiday and not a national day of remembrance. In addition, a two minute silence is held on the anniversary in remembrance of the dead victims but excludes those still living with the consequences of the disaster. Trauma creates a fragmented, non-linear time line that forces us to create new forms of memory and understanding. The memorial that the state wants to erect portrays Bhopal as existing within a singular temporal trajectory; the disaster and the aftermath, which forces it to become part of a state-accepted story that does not take into account the diverse experience of Bhopalis. Such static memorials also detract from the current issues faced by Bhopalis as constructs the disaster to a thing of the past, when in reality it is being relived every day. As Irwin said in the History Boys ‘It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember…there’s no better way of forgetting something that by commemorating it’.

Further Reading Shalini Sharma: The Politics of Remembering Bhopal Stephen Zavestoski: The Struggle for Justice in Bhopal: A new/old breed of Transnational Social Movements Pawas Bisht: The Politics of Cosmopolitan Memory Jenny Edkins: Trauma and the Memory of Politics

London in Literature: A Whirlwind History BY VERITY RIMMER v.j.rimmer@durham.ac.uk Samuel Johnson famously said in 1777 that 'when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford'. And there certainly has been a great deal of life. Home, for me, is some 100 miles North of the Big Smoke, but besides having made the journey down to King’s Cross on numerous occasions, I have relied upon the wealth of literature that has dedicated itself over centuries to giving the world a flavour of that great city. I cannot encompass London in a single article, but my purpose is to embark on a brief historical tour through its representations in the work of several important writers - individuals that have come, in many ways, to represent the London of their generations; it is they who have sought to capture its enormous, baffling, tantalising allure through the medium of language, and to preserve its vivacious character in literature. And in each case, this ‘character’ is something which London assumes through its inhabitants. It is not the economic growth of the city that interests the writer, but the ever-changing conditions of human experience, and the effects of changing times upon the people of the city. London, founded by the Romans in the 1st century, was already a flourishing urban centre in the Middle Ages owing to its strong position as a trade port. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer (b. 1340s) was the son of a London wine-merchant. He climbed the social ladder to fill the role of London’s Controller of Customs in 1374. His bestknown poetic work, The Canterbury Tales, provides a lively snapshot of society through relating the journey of a group of pilgrims from London to Canterbury. And Chaucer’s pilgrims, who gather in the

Tabard Inn in Southwark, seem to encompass every walk of (admittedly middle-class) urban life; amongst them we encounter a knight, a miller, a friar and a prioress, to name but a few. Class issues and social mobility were topical as ever in Chaucer’s time; the Peasants’ Revolt, for example, came in 1381, and affected London as well as other parts of England. Chaucer’s social stance in writing the Tales merits a discussion in itself, and one that I will have to put aside for now. But in any case, Chaucer’s colourful collection of characters and their individual voices are to be recommended to anyone with an interest in getting a taste of medieval London and its ‘types’. Similarly, our impression of London life in the seventeenth century is partly informed by the work of the diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). Pepys’ account of the Great Fire provides a vivid picture of the events of September 1666, when London was thrown into turmoil amidst fast-spreading flames. The diarist leads us on a journey through the city as he observes events from various locations. From Tower Bridge he sees ‘an infinite great fire’, and his trip ‘down to the waterside’ reveals chaos amongst the city-dwellers: ‘[e]verybody endeavoring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off.’ Pepys even notices ‘poor pigeons’, who ‘hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned, their winds, and fell down.’ This kind of writing, with its sensitivity to detail, is what renders Pepys’ account so lifelike. And authenticity is crucial to the appeal of a diarist’s work. Elsewhere, Pepys’ text contains much of the everyday and the personal, offering a unique degree of insight int0 the living experience within Restoration London. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw Britain undergo its industrial revolution. The introduction of steam power allowed for mass industrial growth, and cities began to develop into the vast 21

urban jungles with which we are familiar today. The novels of Dickens capture these changes, bringing London to life vividly through a wonderfully diverse population of characters, and a studied establishment of setting. Exemplary of this is the opening chapter of Bleak House, in which Dickens describes at length the infamous London smog. He manages to capture the grime and commotion of the city streets by tracing the fog as it reaches into almost every nook and cranny. And whilst the fog seeps everywhere, people and animals struggle to negotiate their paths: 'Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.' Dickens explores another, more troubling side of London in Bleak House, with regard to the social conditions of the city’s poor. London’s population grew rapidly in the nineteenth century, and as noted by F.S. Schwarzbach in his book, Dickens and the City, public services such as ‘[t]ransport, education, sanitation, food distribution, religious institutions, government, housing’ were placed under increasing pressure of demand. Poverty was a significant problem, and a subject Dickens chose to address explicitly in his writing. A

memorable case is Jo, Bleak House’s tragic street urchin, a symbolic figure for his existence on the unforgiving streets of Victorian London. Jo is a product of the society in which he lives - not a ‘foreigngrown savage', but in fact 'the ordinary home-made article.' Dickens’ narrator points out that though Jo is '[d]irty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses', he is only 'a common creature of the common streets' of London. After all, 'Homely filth begrimes him’ , and ‘homely rags are on him'. There is ‘nothing interesting’ about Jo. This, of course, was Dickens’ point - suffering such as this was painfully commonplace. Moving into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, then, London has born witness to further populational development. After the Second World War, mass immigration began into Britain from Europe and from former British colonies in the Caribbean, in Asia, and in Africa. London, as a port and as a centre of employment opportunity, attracted immigration and has consequently developed into a melting-pot of cultures. The city’s literature has been enriched for the diversity, as modern writers have portrayed life within London’s immigrant communities. Monica Ali’s acclaimed novel Brick Lane, for example, traces the experiences of a Bangladeshi woman who has come to live in London. The present-day novels of London are, just like their forebears, focused on the wider cultural, historical and social context, but also on the personal. It is the life in London that lends the city such character - which has made it, and shall, I hope, continue to make it, a source of inspiration for its resident writers.

Further Reading F. S. Schwarzbach: Dickens and the City A. R. Myers: London in the Age of Chaucer http://worldcitieshistory.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/medievallondon.html

The Transience of Urban Attachment BY BEN KIRK benjamin.kirk@durham.ac.uk Inhabiting a metropole instils one with a characteristic feeling of involvement and vitality, which is amplified when the city in question is new to the subject. It is this feeling that lures many of us away from our nests and in search of pastures new, and is undoubtedly positive for broadening the mind and providing novel experiences. Similarly, if you happen to land somewhere that offers as much comfort as it does excitement, the possibility of a new home opens innumerable doors of opportunity, and can be the start of something truly life-changing. Inevitably, immersing yourself in a new culture and surrounding yourself with new people entails that new relationships will be forged and, by extension, new commitments will be made. In the relative blink of an eye, your next ten years may have been determined by a journey lasting a mere couple of hours. The unfortunate upshot of such a process is that those preceding years, probably the most formative of your life, tend to be allowed to fade into memory, no longer sufficiently present to demand prolonged consideration. Of course, the nostalgic amongst you may disagree with me, but there is a stark difference between active consideration and fond remembrance. As soon as we allow ourselves to think of what was as opposed to what is, we effectively turn the page and begin a new chapter in our lives. This is necessary at times, obviously: no-one can expect to keep pace with a new urban environment if they are overly invested in the past, and this transience is a natural and unavoidable part of one’s development as a person. But it is important also to remind oneself that what we leave behind is not just a

collection of stagnant memories, but in many cases people just like us, walking a parallel path towards their own unique future. It is also important to remember that whereas we may have concluded the period of our lives in which these people were most prominent, such seismic shifts are very rarely synchronised. As such, those who have moved on may still be viewed as a very present player in the lives of those who remain, in significance if not distance. Therefore, naturally, any indication that they themselves have been moved on from will most likely be taken with a feeling of indignation, at least until the time comes for them to replicate the process. Situations like these can, of course, be difficult to resolve; on the one hand there is a strong desire to continue focusing on establishing oneself in whichever fresh environment one has found, yet for the majority, a lingering guilt is felt upon encountering the occasional sign that they are being missed by those back home. A further fateful consequence of such shifting commitments is that responsibilities seemingly held by the now distant parties may be perceivably neglected – an effect that is very much more immediate to and easily recognised by those who have to deal with the fallout of such neglect. A change of scenery does not automatically entail a full departure from what we once considered worthy of conscientious attention. I am very aware that my tone thus far could be construed as rather unforgiving and potentially unfair towards those who are lucky enough to forge ahead and continue life elsewhere. However, as one who has been subject to such innocent desertion, I’m merely trying to put into words what I am sure has been felt by countless others. Nevertheless, this is not to say that those ‘left at home’ are without with new responsibilities of their own. There will come times when that inimitable metropolitan guilt will prompt an attempt 23

to reconnect, and this kind effort deserves recognition. Pride will no doubt be a factor in the reception they receive, and it can also be one of the toughest obstacles to overcome when it – often irrationally – pervades even the most intimate of relationships. But despite its initial power to poison us, the half-life of pride is usually mercifully short, allowing a warmth to grow, fuelled by fond memories and a sense of premature nostalgia. Understanding and acceptance of the inevitability of their departure will help us to gain a new perspective on the situation, and one more

formative experience is had when we endure the pain and pleasure of a friend’s voyage and return. Advancing towards new horizons is best appreciated at the arm of a friend or two, for without this anchoring link to our previous home it is easy to cut adrift from familiar shores, and potentially find ourselves shipwrecked. The comfort of strangers we encounter in a new and vibrant metropole will allow us to appreciate what we have left behind, and drive us to ensure that it remains a stone’s throw away.

Further Reading Smadar Lavie and Ted Swedenburg: Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity Milan Kundera: Ignorance Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Emily Bronté: Wuthering Heights

Suiting A Habitat: Narrating My Walk, Walking Through A Narration BY JOSHUA EATON jle508@york.ac.uk [Guest Writer from York University] As a Literature student and a village dweller, I am privy to the flaneur’s peaceful sensation of drifting receptively through my surroundings, breaking from pacing with purpose to give attention to the buildings and the nature around me, making up the place I have found myself in. While surrealists and symbolists of previous eras may have been met by sceptics questioning the practical use of this disposition, the practice has developed into a popular modern study known as psycho-geography. Study into the influence that an environment and the mind have on one another has turned to literature to record the interactions, the sentiments and the social lives of the inanimate place. Tjebbe van Tijen and Jeffrey Shaw's article 'Literary Psychogeography' appropriately states that forms of literature ‘relate the changes cities go through, revive what can no longer be lived’. This implies a form of narrative reflected in the life of the place, yet the nature of psycho-geography valuing individual experience means that no one whole view will easily exist - rather, a place is made up of a series of views and images. It is said by Mark Gisbourne that ‘Today we increasingly build our picture of the world (habitat) from the part-narrative of purely sensory experiences such as these.’ This is said in relation to Niklas Goldbach’s short film Habitat C3B, which I will use to explore urban representation in psycho-geographical literature. This 2008 film is set in the Parisian district

of ‘Front de Seine’ - an area designed to modernise the arrondissement - and presents the viewer with a silent, still, urban series of concrete buildings, arranged with strict linear patterns, through which a group of identical men dressed uniformly in black and white walk with a purposeful manner yet with no clear direction. The unvoiced narrative depicts one outlawed member breaking from the group and consequently being chased through the environment. The men mirror each other’s patterns of movement and the viewer witnesses the chase in fractured moments and perspectives, sometimes hearing the approach of a runner before seeing him, sometimes seeing him through the reflection in the windows of the buildings. There is no resolve to the narrative as the film loops seamlessly to its beginning. The film has science fiction and dystopian resonances, directing the viewer to watch with a question of control in mind. While the group of men patrol the landscape, they are unable to capture the outlaw, despite him seeming entrapped by the labyrinthine architecture. The setting has a strong presence and appears to motivate the direction of the chase, seeming to guide the men towards or away from each other; however, it is unclear whom exactly the environment is in support of. This obscurity of purpose is mirrored by the characters’/group’s ’s directionless movements before the chase. Their presented nonchalance reads as an act, particularly in one moment when three men are on the screen. One man sits on a bench to the left, stands and walks a step to the side, then sits once again, as if for the first time. To his right a man leans against a barrier with legs crossed, seemingly relaxed, yet looks in one direction with the keen eye of a look out. To his right another man marches across the screen, reminding the viewer of the patrol-like nature of their presence. This moment pushes a performative element to the forefront of the viewer's mind. When viewing the

subsequent shots of the chase, in which the men run at equal pace, turning corners which lead them astray from each other or bring them back together, it appears subtly playful. The men and the environment are therefore attributed a wholly performative element. The appearance of control, order and regimentation in the film is undermined by this performative aspect, which means that the viewer is not to be met with the sensation of danger expected in the genres that this film initially implies. Such unresolved expectations give the viewer the opportunity to pass their own judgement. The urban buildings represented in this short film imply regimentation and control, having a larger presence than that of the men. The actions of the different clones utilise these elements to impose onto the film a narrative which could not have existed without either the environment or the earlier evocation of such genres. In this light, the multiple bodies of the same man represent the existence of multiple views

and existences, which culminate in a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflected view of their environment. My own experiences of psychogeographical awareness have been based upon living in rural communities, as well as historically rich Cambridgian stone buildings, decorated Churches and Cathedrals and cobbled streets, all preserved and reconstructed to maintain the sense of its original aesthetic. When confronted with an urban environment I am meeting it with eyes unfamiliar to the dynamism of the surroundings. Yet, remembering that the purpose of the district of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Front de Seineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; was to modernise what was already there, it remains easy to witness the existence of a less overtly historical narrative than in my less urbanised environments. The urban environment is therefore one that I view as a playing ground for narrative, with the surroundings and the people acting on one another to create an environment which accepts its constant role of development, without resolution.

Further Reading/Viewing Niklas Goldbach: Habitat C3B - https://vimeo.com/3743118 Tjebbe van Tijen and Jeffrey Shaw: Literary Psychogeography [Imaginary Museum]

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