Cityscapes in the Americas and Beyond: Representations of Urban Complexity in Literature and Film (Inter-American Studies / Estudios Interamericanos)

From the perspective of literary and cultural studies, this volume, the fourth in the series, explores how urban complexity is represented in fiction, film, and other media. Almost half of the essays in this volume focus on New York City as arguably the epitome of the urban. Further essays offer discussions of other North American cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, or Mexico City, as well as comparative views beyond North America. In their exploration of various facets of urban complexity, the essays cover a broad range of topics mobility, intercultural encounters and cosmopolitanism, crime, violence and trauma, urban utopia and dystopia, socio-cultural heterogeneity, or conflicts over the use of urban space. With complexity increasingly becoming a focus of urban research across the disciplines, this volume contributes to the discussion by showing how analyses of literary and filmic urban imaginaries can point out the seismographic potential of urban cultural expression and can therefore help us to understand key developments in urban agglomerations in North America and beyond.