On the maelstrom of the metropolis.
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We kick of the 2024/25 syllabus with the first theme, The Future of Place, asking, is politics possible without a sense of place. We discuss Georg Simmel's short essay "Metropolis and Mental Life" and Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air (chapter 5, on New York).
How does Simmel relate the metropolitan condition to a historical passage from the 18th century to the 19th?
Is city life intellectual and blasé, versus small town emotionality?
Is narcissism built into modernity? Is there an aristocratic individualist revolt in evidence today?
Do we need places to hang out in before we can do political organising?
Are we nostalgic for top-down modernisation?
Readings:
All That Is Solid Melts into Air (chapter 5, on New York)