1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910433243203321

Autore

More Prachi

Titolo

Actors and Networks in the Megacity : A Literary Analysis of Urban Narratives / Prachi More

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bielefeld, : transcript Verlag, 2017

ISBN

3-8394-3834-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (222 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Urban Studies

Classificazione

HG 430

Disciplina

810

Soggetti

Materialism; Realism; Documentary; Representation; Urban Cities; Global South; Bruno Latour; Actor-Network Theory; ANT; Megacity; Documenting Strategy; Narrative; Knowledge Production; Epistemology; Sociology; Literature; City; General Literature Studies; Urban Studies; Theory of Literature; Literary Studies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter    1  Table Of Contents    5  List Of Illustrations    7  Acknowledgement    9  Introduction: Urban Narratives And Bruno Latour's Empiricism    11  I. Contextualizing Contemporary Urban Narratives As Literary Documentary    21  II. Bruno Latour's 'New Empiricism'    37  III. The Poetics and Politics of Rambling in lain Sinclair's Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire    65  IV. Strategies, Spatial Trajectories And Scenography: Micro-Mapping The Megacity In Suketu Mehta's Maximum City    113  V. Of Spirals And Capitals: Sam Miller's Delhi, Adventures In A Megacity    151  Conclusion: Actor-Network Theory And Literary Criticism    181  Works Cited    199

Sommario/riassunto

This study is a concise introduction to Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory and its application in a literary analysis of urban narratives of the 21st century. We encounter well-known psycho-geographers such as Iain Sinclair and Sam Miller, and renowned authors, Patrick Neate and Suketu Mehta. Prachi More analyses these authors' accounts of vastly different cities such as London, Delhi, Mumbai, Johannesburg, New York and Tokyo. Are these urban narratives a contemporary solution to documenting an ever-evasive urban reality? If so, how do they embody "matters of concern" as Latour would have put it, laying bare modern-day "actors" and "networks" rather than reporting mere



"matters of fact"? These questions are drawn into an inter-disciplinary discussion that addresses concerns and questions of epistemology, the sociology of knowledge as well as urban and documentary studies.