Economic and political influences on urban planning: a comparison of London, Paris and Berlin

This paper addressed the degree of autonomy experienced by the planning regimes of London, Paris and Berlin. What variation exists in the governance of these cities and how do national, local, political, business and community interests effect planning decisions? The discussion is placed in the context of the literature on world cities and growth coalitions and the debate over whether economic forces compel cities to follow similar strategies. The paper concludes that in the case of the three cities examined there is considerable variation of planning approach due to different historical, cultural and political factors.

'he perceives himself as a caterpillar […]' constructions of the disabled subject in the critical response to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'

This chapter focuses on critical responses to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, especially their construction of disability. The suggestion is that such criticism takes the disabled body to be both necessary and superfluous to the meaning of the film, a difficulty that, I argue, can be read more widely within film theory. Ever since Christian Metz’s ‘the Imaginary Signifier’, the condition of being ‘bound to a wheelchair’ is understood to have a resonance for theories of film spectatorship, but only ever in a sense that does away with the wheelchair as a mark of difference.

Representing violence, playing control: warring constructions of masculinity in Action Man toys

This chapter analyses how children, and especially boys, are constructed as ‘savage’ in relation to warlike toys and representations that narrate particular versions of conflict, such as war and terrorism. The chapter uses Action Man toys as a case study that is contextualized against a wider background of other toys, television programmes and films. Action Man is most familiar as a twelve-inch costumed toy figure, but the brand also extends into related media representations such as television programmes, comics and advertising. The chapter focuses increasingly on the specifics of Action Man representations produced from the 1960s to the 1990s, prefacing this detailed discussion with some examples of transmedia texts aimed at children in film and television. This chapter suggests that making the toy a central object of analysis allows for insights into representations of the gendered body that are particularly useful for work on the child-savage analogy. Some of the cultural meanings of war toys, warlike play and representations of war that can be analysed from this perspective include their role in the construction of masculine identity, their representation of particular wars and warlikeness in general, and their relationship to consumer society. This complex of meanings exhibits many of the contradictions that inhabit the construction of ‘the child’ in general, such as that the often extreme masculinity of war toys and games is countered by an aesthetic of spatial disposition, collecting and sometimes nurturing that is more conventionally feminine. Such inter-dependent but apparently opposed meanings can also be seen in the construction of the child as untainted by adult corruption yet also savage, or as in need of adult guidance yet also offering a model of innocence and purity that adults are expected to admire.

A corpus approach to discursive constructions of a hip-hop identity

This chapter is an analysis of a 100,000-word corpus consisting of message-board postings on hip-hop websites. A discourse analysis of this corpus reveals three strategies employed by the posters to identify themselves as members of the hip-hop community in the otherwise anonymous setting of the internet: (1) defined openings and closings, (2) repeated use of slang and taboo terms, and (3) performance of verbal art. Each strategy is characterized by the codification of non-standard grammar and pronunciations characteristic of speech, as well as by the use of non-standard orthography. The purpose of the discourse is shown to be a performance of identity, whereby language is used and recognized as the discursive construction of one’s hip-hop identity.

O discurso autobiográfico nos relatos de viagem de Nísia Floresta

En plein XIXe siècle, Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta a écrit sur deux voyages faits en Europe. Quelques années plus tard, cette norte-rio-grandense a livré au public ses récits de voyage : Itinéraire d un voyage en Allemagne (1857) et Trois ans en Italie Suivis d un Voyage en Grèce (1864/1872). Malgré les particularités qui entourent chacun de ces récits, un aspect y est fortement présent : les marques autobiographiques. Notre travail a comme principal objectif enquêter comment se manifeste ce discours autobiographique. A partir de l‟Analyse du Discours, nous avons travaillé quelques positionnements sur certaines oeuvres littéraires, comme par exemple, le fait qu‟elles aient plus d‟un genre. Ce qui se passe dans les récits de voyage de Nísia Floresta est semblable, car au-délà de raconter le passage de Nísia par ces lieux, nous pouvons trouver des caractéristiques qui appartiennent à l‟écriture fragmentaire, autobiographique et épistolaire. Devant les propositions indiquées par Philippe Lejeune, nous avons pu confirmer que ces récits de Nísia font partie de l‟écriture autobiographique. Sous l‟optique de quelques théories, nous avons parcouru des points intéressants qui enveloppent ces récits et, de cette façon, nous avons voyagé avec Nísia Floresta par l‟Allemagne et ultérieurement par l‟Italie et Grèce, en connaissant ainsi, pas seulement un peu plus sur ces lieux, mais beaucoup de confidences sur cette écrivain potiguar, qui a ouvert son coeur au plublic