Modernity and Metropolis: Writing, Film and Urban Formations

This study of urban identity and community looks at selected twentieth century literary and film texts in the contexts of theorizations modernism, postmodernism, post-coloniality and globalization. Brooker draws on Beck and Giddens and Rem Koolhasas, amongst others, to propose a 'reflexive modernism' which rewrites and re-imagines the urban scene. Cities included are London and New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok. Writers and artists considered are: in the modernist period, Ezra Poun and T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes and Melvin B. Tolson, and in the contemporary period, Hanif Kureishi, Bernadine Evaristo and Salman Rushdie, Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller, Paul Auster and Sarah Schulman, William Gibson, Wong Kar-Wai and Lawrence Chua, and Alex Proyas, Latife Tekin and John Berger.