Urban Awakenings: Disturbance and Enchantment in the Industrial City (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9789811578601)

This book presents a series of urban investigations undertaken in the metropolis of Melbourne. It is based on the idea that 'enchantment' as an affective state is important to ethical and political engagement. Alexander and Gleeson argue that a sense of enchantment can give people the impulse to care and engage in an increasingly troubled world, whereas disenchantment can lead to resignation. Applying and extending this theory to the urban landscape, the authors walk their home city with eyes open to the possibility of seeing and experiencing the industrial city in different ways. This unique methodology, described as 'urban tramping', positions the authors as freethinking freewalkers of the city, encumbered only with the duty to look through the delusions of industrial capitalism towards its troubled, contradictory soul. These urban investigations were disrupted midway by COVID-19, a plague that ended up confirming the book's central thesis of a fractured modernity vulnerable to various internal contradictions.


Author: Samuel Alexander,Brendan Gleeson
ISBN-10: 9811578605
ISBN-13: 9789811578601
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 11/22/2020
Pages: 255
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.83w x 0.55d