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An Interdisciplinary Series in Cultural History, Geography and Literature
Editor:
Spatial Practices aims to publish new work in the study of spaces and places which have been appropriated for cultural meanings: symbolic landscapes and urban places which have specific cultural meanings that construct, maintain, and circulate myths of a unified national or regional culture and their histories, or whose visible ironies deconstruct those myths. Taking up the lessons of the new cultural geography, papers are invited which attempt to build bridges between the disciplines of cultural history, literary and cultural studies, and geography.
Spatial Practices will promote a new interdisciplinary kind of cultural history drawing on constructivist approaches to questions of culture and identity that insist that cultural “realities” are the effect of discourses; but also that cultural objects and their histories and geographies are read as texts, with formal and generic rules, tropes and topographies.
Before their inclusion in Spatial Practices manuscripts will be subjected to peer-review.
Spatial Practices will promote a new interdisciplinary kind of cultural history drawing on constructivist approaches to questions of culture and identity that insist that cultural “realities” are the effect of discourses; but also that cultural objects and their histories and geographies are read as texts, with formal and generic rules, tropes and topographies.
Before their inclusion in Spatial Practices manuscripts will be subjected to peer-review.
Recent events in London have emphasised the fact that the commemoration of the two world wars of the 20th century represents a particularly significant but also touchy aspect of the British collective memory. Concentrating on the monuments and statuary which contribute to the city’s commemorative topography this essay aims to explore the ideologically sensitive zones in the centre of London. The discussion focuses on the cultural practices instrumental in claiming significant parts of wider Westminster as places of national memory. Particular space is given to the discussion of the controversial Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and the subtle shift it marks in London’s memory of the wars.
Recent events in London have emphasised the fact that the commemoration of the two world wars of the 20th century represents a particularly significant but also touchy aspect of the British collective memory. Concentrating on the monuments and statuary which contribute to the city’s commemorative topography this essay aims to explore the ideologically sensitive zones in the centre of London. The discussion focuses on the cultural practices instrumental in claiming significant parts of wider Westminster as places of national memory. Particular space is given to the discussion of the controversial Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and the subtle shift it marks in London’s memory of the wars.
Ebenezer Howard’s idea of the garden city represents one of the most influential schemes in social utopianism that developed during the late-Victorian period. Despite the fact that in 1908 the first garden city was eventually established in rural Hertfordshire the literary scene largely ignored its existence and did not take part in the heated debates on the scheme at the time. G.K. Chesterton and John Buchan are among the very few writers who integrate the utopian space of the garden city into their literary worlds. This essay discusses the strategies by which writers of a pointedly conservative stance not only criticise and deconstruct the utopian space of the garden city but also set out to construct conservative counter-utopias.
In:
Futurescapes
Ebenezer Howard’s idea of the garden city represents one of the most influential schemes in social utopianism that developed during the late-Victorian period. Despite the fact that in 1908 the first garden city was eventually established in rural Hertfordshire the literary scene largely ignored its existence and did not take part in the heated debates on the scheme at the time. G.K. Chesterton and John Buchan are among the very few writers who integrate the utopian space of the garden city into their literary worlds. This essay discusses the strategies by which writers of a pointedly conservative stance not only criticise and deconstruct the utopian space of the garden city but also set out to construct conservative counter-utopias.
In:
Futurescapes
Volume Editor:
Thinking Northern offers new approaches to the processes of identity formation which are taking place in the diverse fields of cultural, economic and social activity in contemporary Britain. The essays collected in this volume discuss the changing physiognomy of Northern England and provide a mosaic of recent thought and new critical thinking about the textures of regional identity in Britain. Looking at the historical origin of Northern identities and at current attitudes to them, the book explores the way received mental images about the North are re-deployed and re-contained in the ever-changing socio-cultural set-up of society in Northern England. The contributors address representation of Northernness in such diverse fields as the music scene, multicultural spaces, the heritage industries, new architecture, the arts, literature and film.
Textures of Identity in the North of England
Series:
Spatial Practices, Volume: 2
Volume Editor:
Thinking Northern offers new approaches to the processes of identity formation which are taking place in the diverse fields of cultural, economic and social activity in contemporary Britain. The essays collected in this volume discuss the changing physiognomy of Northern England and provide a mosaic of recent thought and new critical thinking about the textures of regional identity in Britain. Looking at the historical origin of Northern identities and at current attitudes to them, the book explores the way received mental images about the North are re-deployed and re-contained in the ever-changing socio-cultural set-up of society in Northern England. The contributors address representation of Northernness in such diverse fields as the music scene, multicultural spaces, the heritage industries, new architecture, the arts, literature and film.
Abstract
In the 16th and the 17th century the annual Lord Mayor’s Show proved to be among the largest civic festivities that took place in London. The ritual of the shows aimed not only at celebrating the City and the Livery companies but also at symbolically coordinating the two power centres on the River Thames: as the newly elected Lord Mayor took his oath of allegiance at the Court of Westminster his journey up and down the river connected the King and the royal Court with the civic community in the City of London. This essay discusses the textual material commissioned by the Livery companies for the shows between 1585 and 1639. In this period the shows proved a potent display of the pride and self-confidence of the City of London. With the tensions rising in the decades before the Civil War, however, the coded language of these panegyric texts begins to echo the anxieties about the destabilising political system under Charles I. In fact, they reveal a defiant spirit of an increasingly self-assured and politically emancipated civic community.