Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City (Publications in Partnership with the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University, 3)

Dystopic imagery has figured prominently in modern depictions of the urban landscape. The city is often portrayed as a terrifying world of darkness, crisis, and catastrophe. Noir Urbanisms traces the history of the modern city through its critical representations in art, cinema, print journalism, literature, sociology, and architecture. It focuses on visual forms of dystopic representation—because the history of the modern city is inseparable from the production and circulation of images—and examines their strengths and limits as urban criticism. Contributors explore dystopic images of the modern city in Germany, Mexico, Japan, India, South Africa, China, and the United States. Their topics include Weimar representations of urban dystopia in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis ; 1960s modernist architecture in Mexico City; Hollywood film noir of the 1940s and 1950s; the recurring fictional destruction of Tokyo in postwar Japan's sci-fi doom culture; the urban fringe in Bombay cinema; fictional explorations of urban dystopia in postapartheid Johannesburg; and Delhi's out-of-control and media-saturated urbanism in the 1980s and 1990s. What emerges in Noir Urbanisms is the unsettling and disorienting alchemy between dark representations and the modern urban experience. In addition to the editor, the contributors are David R. Ambaras, James Donald, Rubén Gallo, Anton Kaes, Ranjani Mazumdar, Jennifer Robinson, Mark Shiel, Ravi Sundaram, William M. Tsutsui, and Li Zhang. Contents......Page 6 Introduction: Imaging the Modern City, Darkly......Page 10 Modernism and Urban Dystopia......Page 24 1 The Phantasm of the Apocalypse: Metropolis and Weimar Modernity......Page 26 2 Sounds Like Hell: Beyond Dystopian Noise......Page 40 3 Tlatelolco: Mexico City’s Urban Dystopia......Page 62 The Aesthetics of the Dark City......Page 82 4 A Regional Geography of Film Noir: Urban Dystopias On- and Offscreen......Page 84 5 Oh No, There Goes Tokyo: Recreational Apocalypse and the City in Postwar Japanese Popular Culture......Page 113 6 Postsocialist Urban Dystopia?......Page 136 7 Friction, Collision, and the Grotesque: The Dystopic Fragments of Bombay Cinema......Page 159 Imaging Urban Crisis......Page 194 8 Topographies of Distress: Tokyo, c. 1930......Page 196 9 Living in Dystopia: Past, Present, and Future in Contemporary African Cities......Page 227 10 Imaging Urban Breakdown: Delhi in the 1990s......Page 250 Contributors......Page 270 B......Page 274 C......Page 275 D......Page 276 G......Page 277 J......Page 278 L......Page 279 M......Page 280 P......Page 281 S......Page 282 T......Page 283 U......Page 284 W......Page 285 Z......Page 286 Introduction: imaging the modern city, darkly / Gyan Prakash Modernism and urban dystopia. The phantasm of the Apocalypse : Metropolis and Weimar modernity / Anton Kaes Sounds like hell : dystopian urban noise / James Donald Tlatelolco : Mexico City's urban dystopia / Ruben Gallo The aesthetics of the dark city. A regional geography of film noir : urban cystopias on- and off-screen / Mark Shiel Oh no, there goes Tokyo : recreational apocalypse and the city in postwar Japanese popular culture / William M. Tsutsui Postsocialist urban dystopia? / Li Zhang Friction, collision, and the grotesque : the dystopic fragments of Bombay cinema / Ranjani Mazumdar Imaging urban crisis. Topographies of distress : Tokyo, c. 1930 / David Ambaras Living in dystopia : past, present and future in contemporary African cities / Jennifer Robinson Imaging urban breakdown : Delhi in the 1990s / Ravi Sundaram. Dystopic imagery has figured prominently in modern depictions of the urban landscape. The city is often portrayed as a terrifying world of darkness, crisis, and catastrophe. This book traces the history of the modern city through its critical representations in art, cinema, print journalism, literature, sociology, and architecture.