Cities in Shade

Urban Geography and the Uses of Noir

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4862709
AutoresMatthew Farish (University of British Columbia, autor correspondente)
Ano2005
Volume23
Fascículo1
Páginas95-118
Data de publicação2005-02-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d185
OpenAlexW1964488551
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas51

This paper historicizes American cities after the Second World War through the rich motif of noir literature and film. But, in doing so, the paper is also a critical consideration of noir's work in urban studies. Noir has been drawn, often usefully but also unfortunately, away from its referents, from the terrain that it most directly summons but also from the spaces in which its contradictions are most apparent. Moving from a discussion of the distractions of Chinatown to contextual themes such as mobility and ruin, the paper links noir criticism and noir texts with broader debates in postwar urbanism and modernism. As just part of these discourses, noir not only is irreducible to certain essences, but can potentially perform the opposite role, challenging conventions of urban understanding and practice. The result would be a more detailed and subtle account of modernism's American geographies

Aesthetics · Art · Chinatown · Criticism · Literature · Modernism (music · Political science · Situationism · Sociology · Summons · Urbanism · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Law · Architecture