This edited volume explores how the global city so integral to processes of globalization and neoliberalization worldwide is now facing new forms of disruption. The essays in this collection use the lens of resistance and critique across a range of literary and cultural texts to explore the potential futures of global cities. They reread neglected histories and fault lines of representation in urban literature around the world to shed new light on the global city. Ranging from the period of high postcolonial development, industrialization and compacted modernization to present-day neoliberal urban planning, the collection considers arrivals and departures in the global city, including the forced movement of undocumented people.
Introduction.
Chapter 1: A World of Confinement and Compartments:
Fanon, Césaire and the Suffocating City.
Chapter 2: Postsecular Ecology and
the Global City in Chris Abanis The Virgin of Flames.
Chapter 3: The Gulf
City in Crisis: Reimagining Migrant Labour Protests in Deepak Unnikrishnans
Temporary People.
Chapter 4: Food and Memory in a Global City: the
Khanapados/Living Lab Project in New Delhi, by Mrityunjay Chatterjee and
Sreejata Roy.
Chapter 5: Narrative Energetics and Energy Ontologies in
Singapore: Powering Petro-conscious Dystopian Novels.
Chapter 6: Aesthetics
of Mythorealism in Ma Jians The Dark Road: The Rural Peasant in Chinas
Global Cities.
Chapter 7: More Hell Than Hell: Seoul, Korean Drama, and
Global Imaginaries of Capitalism.
Chapter 8: Archipelago of Illegals:
Sydney, Migrant Spatiality, and Aravind Adigas Amnesty.- Afterword: The
Global City at a Tilt.
Rashmi Varma is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, UK.
Jini Kim Watson is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Transpacific Literatures at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
