Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City

by Dana Cuff, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Todd Presner, Maite Zubiaurre, Jonathan Jae-An Crisman

Overview

Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies.

Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present, and speculating about their futures. This book introduces both the theory and practice of urban humanities, tracing the evolution of the concept, presenting methods and practices with a wide range of research applications, describing changes in teaching and curricula, and offering case studies of urban humanities practices in the field.

Urban humanities views the city through a lens of spatial justice, and its inquiries are centered on the microsettings of everyday life. The book's case studies report on real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim—Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles—with several projects described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262538220
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Series:	Urban and Industrial Environments
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dana Cuff is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she is also Director and Founder of cityLAB. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Todd Presner is Ross Professor of Germanic Languages, Chair of the Digital Humanities Program, and Associate Dean of Digital Innovation at UCLA, where is is also a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Maite Zubiaurre is Professor and Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Humanities Division, at UCLA and a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Jonathan Crisman is Assistant Professor in Public and Applied Humanities at the University of Arizona and a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword xi

Preface xv

1 Introducing Urban Humanities 1

Interlude 1 Mexico City 30

2 The Lineages of Urban Humanities 37

Project A Shanghai 69

Project B Los Angeles 73

Interlude 2 Tokyo 76

3 Fused Scholarship: Practices of Urban Humanities 85

Project C Tokyo 137

Project D Shanghai 141

Project E Tokyo 145

Interlude 3 Fukushima 148

4 The Practical Future 155

Project F Mexico City 179

Interlude 4 Shanghai 182

5 Engaged Scholarship and Pedagogy 191

Coda: A Year in the Life of Urban Humanities at UCLA 235

Project G Los Angeles 243

Project H Mexico City 247

Interlude 5 Los Angeles 250

6 Conclusion: Assessing Urban Humanities 257

Notes 267

References 285

Index 297

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Congratulations to the five authors of Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City, who weave together many original approaches to urban research to ground effective urban practices around the globe. Anyone interested in social justice in the city—pursued through architecture, urban design, urban planning, or the humanities—needs to read this compelling book.

—Dolores Hayden, Professor Emerita, Yale University; author of The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History

Urban Humanities allows us to reimagine the cities with a heightened sense of engagement for the cities in which we live and engage with. Cities are truly a living organism in which the past, present, and future are thoughtfully and theoretical explored within these pages of engagement.

—Catherine Opie, Professor of Photography, UCLA