In 1972, Italo Calvino published Invisible Cities, a literary book that masterfully combines philosophy and poetry, rigid structure and free play, theoretical insight and glittering prose. The text is an extended meditation on urban life, and it continues to resonate not only among literary scholars, but among social scientists, architects, and urban planners as well. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Invisible Cities, this collection of essays serves as both an appreciation and a critical engagement. Drawing from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives and geographical contexts, this volume grapples with the theoretical, pedagogical, and political legacies of Calvino’s work. Each chapter approaches Invisible Cities not only asa novel but as a work of evocative ethnography, place-writing, and urban theory. Fifty years on, what can Calvino’s dreamlike text offer to scholars and practitioners interested in actually existing urban life?
Author(s): Benjamin Linder
Series: Literary Urban Studies
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 354
City: Cham
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: Invisible Cities and the Urban Imagination
Returning to Invisible Cities
The Author, The Text
Invisible Cities, Lived Cities
New Directions, Other Cities
References
Part I: Cities & Theory
Chapter 2: Invisible Cities: Learning to Recognize Urban Society
Introduction
Invisible Cities and The Urban Revolution
What Is to Be Done?
References
Chapter 3: How to Map the Invisible
References
Chapter 4: Invisible Cities and the Work of Storying the Future
Be Empirical
Perfect Control Is Impossible
Be Aware of What Is Unsaid
Stories Can Be Too Seductive
Don’t Despair
References
Chapter 5: Paris, Latour, and Calvino
Sociology of Paris
References
Chapter 6: Queer Cities, Bodies & Desire: Reading Nicole Brossard Alongside Italo Calvino
“Tell me another city”
Unruly Systems
Zobeide
Traffic
Maps
Names
Chess
Kiss (By Way of Conclusion)
References
Chapter 7: On the Epistemic Ruins of Existence
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
References
Part II: Cities & Cities
Chapter 8: “The Void not Filled with Words”: The Role of Venice in Invisible Cities
Introduction
The City and Literature as Networks
Interchangeable Data and Permutations
Venice and Its Discourse
Venice and Language
Venice and the Future of Cities
References
Chapter 9: A Tale of Two Ethnographers: Urban Anthropologists Read Invisible Cities
Calvino as Visionary Ethnographer (Emanuela Guano)
Invisible Cities from Milan to Vancouver (Cristina Moretti)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Fifty Years of Soul City: Lessons of a Black Utopia
Utopia as a Not-Yet-Place
Utopia from Theory to Practice
References
Chapter 11: Tirana Visible and Invisible
The Bazaar City
The Boulevard City
The Concrete City
The City of Cafés
Conclusion: The Palimpsest of Tirana
References
Chapter 12: The Lost City: The Pathos of Arab Jerusalem
A City of Signs
Night and Cats
The Names of Jerusalem
Narrating the Lost City
References
Chapter 13: “Submerging the City in Its Own Past”: Tracing Glasgow’s Architectures of Inhabitation
Annie’s Loo
Guddling About
Conclusions
References
Chapter 14: Poetics of the Invisible, Poetics of Rubble
Narratives of Loss, Shame, Matter
From Metaphor to Matter
Poetics of the Invisible, Poetics of Rubble
Postscriptum
References
Chapter 15: Encountering Urban Mutualities and Indeterminacy with a Dar es Salaam Taxi Driver
Indeterminacy and Mutuality in the City
All the Future Dars
References
Chapter 16: Reconstructing Memory and Desire in Bhaktapur, Nepal
Introduction
“It Will Be Same as Before”: Remembering and Forgetting Through Reconstruction
“Everything Has Changed”: Neo-Newar Homes in Bhaktapur
Conclusion
References
Chapter 17: The Weight of the City: The Burden and Opportunities of Urban Villages
Jakarta’s Urban Villages
Shenzhen’s Urban Villages
Resonant Strands
References
Chapter 18: Don’t Nuisance the Relented City: Community Barriers and Urban “Keepers” in Haedo, Buenos Aires
Care and Tranquility in the “Republic of Haedo”
Face-to-Face Neighborliness: Social Classification as Barriers
Conclusion
References
Part III: Cities & Practice
Chapter 19: The Architect and Invisible Cities
Imagination and Reality
Structure and Possibility
Citizens and Users
Designing the Future
Conclusion
References
Chapter 20: Visible Cities: Calvino in Performance
References
Chapter 21: The Pedagogy of Storytelling in Invisible Cities
What Invisible Cities Teaches
Teaching Abroad
Teaching Invisible Cities
References
Chapter 22: Invisible Smart Cities
References
Chapter 23: Peripheral Visions of Empire: Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo (Homage to Calvino)
Introduction: The Peripheral Vision of Invisible Cities
Cities and the Dead (Zagreb)
Continuous Cities (Belgrade)
Cities and Signs (Sarajevo)
Conclusion: Peripheral Visions and Metrosophy on Imperial Margins
References
Chapter 24: Imagining São Paulo with Invisible Cities
References
Chapter 25: Desires and Fears in the Invisible Eternal City
Rome and Memory
Rome and Desires (Fears, too)
Rome and Signs
The Thin City
Trading Rome
Rome and Eyes
Rome and Names
Rome and the Dead
Hidden Cities: An Ethnography of All Ethnographies
References
Chapter 26: Nyctopolis, the City of Darkness
The Dark Twin of the City
Shadow Cities, Between the Real and the Imaginary
Manchester as City of Darkness
Nightwalking in Nyctopolis
Reflections on Nightfall and the City
References
Chapter 27: Epilogue: A Comparative Palimpsest of Urban Plenitude and Difference
Accra’s Trotros as Incubators of Social Relations
The New York Underground as Another Crucible of Social Relations
Back to Calvino
References
Index
