Malcolm Miles
Biographic Data
| ID | 3692668 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Malcolm Miles |
| GIVEN NAMES | Malcolm |
| FAMILY NAME | Miles |
| SIGNATURE | MILES M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Plymouth |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9906-9184 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 81 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Herbert Marcuse and Environmentalism
Book Review| March 01 2020 Herbert Marcuse and Environmentalism Ecology and Revolution: Herbert Marcuse and the Challenge of a New World Order, by Reitz, Charles, New York: Routledge, 2019, 194 pages, $31.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-138-34187-6 Malcolm Miles Malcolm Miles Malcolm Miles is a writer on critical theory and modern culture; his most recent book is Cities and Literature (2019), and his next will be Paradoxical Urbanism (2020). He was pr…
Paradoxical Idylls
The re-greening of post-industrial sites creates distinct landscapes, perhaps a new form of idyllic retreat. For example, Duisburg Nord Landscape Park in the Ruhr, Germany, is a 230-hectare site on which redundant industrial structures have been preserved and in some cases given new leisure uses, surrounded by a decontaminated landscape combining natural (succession) regrowth with new planting. The outcome is a landscape which reconciles a past o…
Herbert Marcuse and the Promesse Du Bonheur
In an essay on French literature in the period of Nazi occupation, Herbert Marcuse argues that a literature of intimacy—love poems and romantic novels—is the last resort of freedom in totalitarian conditions. Written in 1945 and revised in the 1970s, Marcuse’s essay argues that in the face of totalitarianism, a literature of intimacy opens a realm of human experience that is outside the control of the regime. Because it carries a memory of joy, i…
Eco-aesthetic dimensions
In his last book, The Aesthetic Dimension (1978), Marcuse argued that a concern for aesthetics is justified when political change is unlikely. But the relation between aesthetics and politics is oblique: "Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness of the men and women who could change the world." (p. 33). Marcuse also linked his critique of capitalism to environmentalism in the early 1970s: "the violation of …
Utopias
Space colonisation and subterranean dwelling have been staples of speculative fiction since at least the nineteenth century, but the invention of nuclear weapons and the prospect of global environmental collapse have, certainly since the Cold War, made proposals offering vertical escape from the surface of the planet a matter worthy of serious consideration among engineers, planners, military strategists, and countercultural futurologists. The sh…
Farewell to Revolution
A work by Freee Art Collective states that protest drives history. Another proclaims that protest is beautiful. The paper considers these projects — as provocative rather than literal readings of history — in light of modern histories of revolt, recurrent resurgences of an interruptive politics (most recently in Occupy), and critiques of modernist art. It suggests that, although protest does not really drive history, nonetheless an art that prote…
Metabolism
Metabolism was an important Japanese movement in architecture in the postwar period, drawing on both international modernism and elements of Japanese vernacular building. Like international modernism, Metabolism addressed both building design and urban planning; it used new technologies to suspend buildings in space and introduced components for a more flexible built environment, such as the pod or plug-in capsule—devices taken up in parallel by …
Public Spaces / Public Spheres
In this short paper I question the validity of aligning new public spaces with the idea of a public sphere of democratic determination. I suggest that the current emphasis on public spaces in urban development schemes is nostalgic, repeats the ungrounded advocacy associated with culturally-led urban redevelopment, and masks a widening democratic deficit. Looking to geographical writing on space as a realm of boundaries and exclusions, I ask wheth…
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Introduction 1. Aesthetics and the Reconstruction of Society 2. The Artist and Social Theory 3. Affirmations 4. A Literature of Intimacy 5. Society as a Work of Art 6. The End of Utopia 7. The Aesthetic Dimension 8. Legacies and Practices Notes Index
Representing nature
Climate change is now an established scientific fact, and dealing with it may require significant shifts in consumption and economic organization. A key question is how these changes can be achieved, by regulation or shifts of consciousness on the parts of individuals. Among the means by which a shift of awareness might occur is cultural work - including the production and reception of art and literature. But does art which represents climate cha…
Hornsey 1968
Public Spheres after Socialism
Incidental Liberation
This article asks how social change occurs when political revolution is not a real possibility. It addresses this in a critical reconsideration of the concept of intentionality, and its relation to instrumentality. The revolutionary agency of avant‐gardes and parties is questioned on the grounds that a conventional view of revolution is instrumentalist and thereby flawed — regardless of the tactics used in specific cases. The issue is further add…
Aesthetics in a Time of Emergency
The division between art and political activism becomes increasingly blurred when artists’ groups develop ways of working which draw on the tactics of campaigning groups. This follows a collapsing of the boundaries between art, architecture, design, fashion and communications media through the past two decades. But while the arts have merged into the creative industries, art activism emerges now as a dissident practice. The article begins by noti…
Public spheres after socialism
Urban Utopias
Utopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for alternative futures and types of settlement. Thous…
Cities and Cultures
Part 1: Definitions 1. Cities 2. Cultures Part 2: Interactions 3. Cities producing culture 4. Culture re-producing cities Part 3: Culture industries and cultural policies 5. The culture industries 6. Cities of Culture Part 4: Interventions 7. Cultural cross-currents 8. Cultural identities 9. Permeable cultures
The Culture Industries
Art has become a ubiquitous if at times convenient solution to problems of urban regeneration and social division. Generally, it takes the form of commissioned works or projects in development schemes, supported by state bureaucracies and funding agencies, which view the arts as expedient in relation to problems produced by other areas of policy, from unemployment to social exclusion. Currently, a shift can be detected in arts policy toward a res…
Interrupting the public realm
In the context of debates on place, space, and identity in a period of globalisation, this article asks whether collaborative arts projects are a means to identity formation for participants. This is of interest, not least, because such projects are outside consumption, the latter more often discussed in work on identity in sociology. Situated perhaps between the arts and the development work of NGOs, such projects also imply a viable, democratic…
Cities and cultures
This book is a critical account of the relations between contemporary cities and the cultures they produce and which in turn shape them. It questions perceived ideas of what constitutes a city's culture through case studies in which different kinds of culture - the arts, cultural institutions and heritage, distinctive ways of life - are seen to be differently used in or affected by the development of particular cities
Society as a work of art
Malcom Miles diskutiert die ästhetische Revolutionsaporie bei Herbert Marcuse. Er beschreibt die Perspektive einer Überwindung dieser Aporie anhand von zwei Positionen der europäischen Gegenwartskunst, die nicht dem alten Avantgarde-Konzept folgen, sondern auf Partizipation und Kritik setzen
Utopias of Mud? Hassan Fathy and Alternative Modernisms
The article reconsiders the mud-brick architecture of Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), looking particularly at his two major (but, for different reasons, incomplete) projects for settlements at New Gourna (1945-1949), across the Nile from Luxor, and at New Baris (1965-1967), in the Kharga Oasis (or New Valley). This reconsideration is timely in two contexts: first, current interest in sustainable architecture and the potential of mud …
Geographies of art and environment
My purpose in this commentary is not to make detailed comments on the six papers which follow, though I say a little about each of them, but to ask what new kinds of insight are produced in a conve
Interventions
Interruptions
Since the 1980s, the cultural industries have gained a key role in strategies to deal with urban problems, seen as able to provide a new economic base in post-industrial settings. Cases of flagship cultural institutions such as Tate Modern or the Guggenheim in Bilbao imply that a cultural turn in urban policy delivers urban revitalisation. Following the turn in Glasgow's fortunes after being European Capital of Culture in 1990, it is easy to unde…
Representing nature
Climate change is now an established scientific fact, and dealing with it may require significant shifts in consumption and economic organization. A key question is how these changes can be achieved, by regulation or shifts of consciousness on the parts of individuals. Among the means by which a shift of awareness might occur is cultural work - including the production and reception of art and literature. But does art which represents climate cha…
The Money Market in the Early Industrial Revolution
(1981). The Money Market in the Early Industrial Revolution: The Evidence from West Riding Attorneys c. 1750–1800. Business History: Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 127-146
Geographies of art and environment
My purpose in this commentary is not to make detailed comments on the six papers which follow, though I say a little about each of them, but to ask what new kinds of insight are produced in a conve
Public Spaces / Public Spheres
In this short paper I question the validity of aligning new public spaces with the idea of a public sphere of democratic determination. I suggest that the current emphasis on public spaces in urban development schemes is nostalgic, repeats the ungrounded advocacy associated with culturally-led urban redevelopment, and masks a widening democratic deficit. Looking to geographical writing on space as a realm of boundaries and exclusions, I ask wheth…
Avant-Garde Art
Art and Politics
Skyscraper Primitives
Art Deco Posters and Graphics
Performance
The Diary of Joseph Farington
Joseph Farington (1747-1821) was a professional landscape and topographical artist. Through his extensive involvement in the affairs of the Royal Academy and his wide circle of friends he was extraordinarily well-informed about the affairs of his day. His diary, which he kept meticulously from 1793 until his death, was published by Yale University Press in sixteen volumes between 1978 and 1984. It comprises not only a detailed record of his actio…
The Money Market in the Early Industrial Revolution
(1981). The Money Market in the Early Industrial Revolution: The Evidence from West Riding Attorneys c. 1750–1800. Business History: Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 127-146
Symbolism
Art and urban regeneration
The case for art in urban regeneration is widely promoted. Some local authorities and development corporations see it as a means of access to an international cultural map; others see it as enabling the construction of identities for communities. The case remains speculative. The model of post-Enlightenment cities is one of exclusion and confinement, whereby ‘awkward’ aspects of the city, such as the insane or vagrant, are excluded from view and …
Another Hero? Public Art and the Gendered City
The City Cultures Reader
Introduction Section 1: What is a City? Section 2: What is Culture? Section 3: Symbolic Economies and New Urban Spaces Section 4: The Culture Industry Section 5: Culture and Technologies Section 6: Everyday Lives Section 7: Contesting Identity Section 8: Boundaries and Transgressions Section 9: Utopias and Dystopias Section 10: Possible Futures
Urban futures
Urban Futures brings together commentaries from a wide range of contemporary disciplines and fields relevant to urban culture, form and society. The book concerns cities in the broadest sense, not just as buildings and spaces, but also as processes and events or sites of occupation, in which meanings are constructed in many ways. The contributors draw on their specialist areas of research to inform current debate, but they also speculate as to ho…
New Practices - New Pedagogies
Interventions
Interruptions
Since the 1980s, the cultural industries have gained a key role in strategies to deal with urban problems, seen as able to provide a new economic base in post-industrial settings. Cases of flagship cultural institutions such as Tate Modern or the Guggenheim in Bilbao imply that a cultural turn in urban policy delivers urban revitalisation. Following the turn in Glasgow's fortunes after being European Capital of Culture in 1990, it is easy to unde…
Society as a work of art
Malcom Miles diskutiert die ästhetische Revolutionsaporie bei Herbert Marcuse. Er beschreibt die Perspektive einer Überwindung dieser Aporie anhand von zwei Positionen der europäischen Gegenwartskunst, die nicht dem alten Avantgarde-Konzept folgen, sondern auf Partizipation und Kritik setzen
Utopias of Mud? Hassan Fathy and Alternative Modernisms
The article reconsiders the mud-brick architecture of Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), looking particularly at his two major (but, for different reasons, incomplete) projects for settlements at New Gourna (1945-1949), across the Nile from Luxor, and at New Baris (1965-1967), in the Kharga Oasis (or New Valley). This reconsideration is timely in two contexts: first, current interest in sustainable architecture and the potential of mud …
Geographies of art and environment
My purpose in this commentary is not to make detailed comments on the six papers which follow, though I say a little about each of them, but to ask what new kinds of insight are produced in a conve
Urban Utopias
Utopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for alternative futures and types of settlement. Thous…
Cities and Cultures
Part 1: Definitions 1. Cities 2. Cultures Part 2: Interactions 3. Cities producing culture 4. Culture re-producing cities Part 3: Culture industries and cultural policies 5. The culture industries 6. Cities of Culture Part 4: Interventions 7. Cultural cross-currents 8. Cultural identities 9. Permeable cultures
The Culture Industries
Art has become a ubiquitous if at times convenient solution to problems of urban regeneration and social division. Generally, it takes the form of commissioned works or projects in development schemes, supported by state bureaucracies and funding agencies, which view the arts as expedient in relation to problems produced by other areas of policy, from unemployment to social exclusion. Currently, a shift can be detected in arts policy toward a res…
Interrupting the public realm
In the context of debates on place, space, and identity in a period of globalisation, this article asks whether collaborative arts projects are a means to identity formation for participants. This is of interest, not least, because such projects are outside consumption, the latter more often discussed in work on identity in sociology. Situated perhaps between the arts and the development work of NGOs, such projects also imply a viable, democratic…
Cities and cultures
This book is a critical account of the relations between contemporary cities and the cultures they produce and which in turn shape them. It questions perceived ideas of what constitutes a city's culture through case studies in which different kinds of culture - the arts, cultural institutions and heritage, distinctive ways of life - are seen to be differently used in or affected by the development of particular cities
Hornsey 1968
Public Spheres after Socialism
Art (24 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Political science (19 works) · Aesthetics (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Politics (12 works) · Visual arts (12 works) · History (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Art history (9 works)