Toward an Urban Cultural Studies HISPANIC URBAN STUDIES BENJAMIN FRASER is Professor and Chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, North Carolina, US. He is the editor of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies and the author, editor, and translator of book and arti- cle publications in Hispanic Studies, Cultural Studies, and Urban Studies. SUSAN LARSON is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Kentucky, US. She is Senior Editor of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies and works at the intersections of Spatial Theory and Literary, Film and Urban Studies. Toward an Urban Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre and the Humanities Benjamin Fraser Toward an Urban Cultural Studies Henri Lefebvre and the Humanities Benjamin Fraser TOWARD AN URBAN CULTURAL STUDIES Copyright © Benjamin Fraser, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-49855-7 All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-50524-1 ISBN 978-1-137-49856-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137498564 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fraser, Benjamin. Toward an urban cultural studies : Henri Lefebvre and the humanities / Benjamin Fraser. pages cm.—(Hispanic urban cultural series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Sociology, Urban. 2. Culture. 3. City and town life. 4. Lefebvre, Henri, 1901–1991. I. Title. HT151.F725 2015 307.76—dc23 2014037973 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: April 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 for Abby TTThhhiiisss pppaaagggeee iiinnnttteeennntttiiiooonnnaaallllllyyy llleeefffttt bbblllaaannnkkk Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I Theoretical Ground 1 Why Urban Cultural Studies? Why Henri Lefebvre? 19 2 Urban Alienation and Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre’s Recalibrated Marxism 43 3 The Work (of Art): Putting Art at the Service of the Urban 69 Part II Textual Variations 4 The Urban Dominant: Everyday Life and the City in Textual Criticism 95 5 The Iconic-Indexical City: Visions of Place in Urban Films 121 6 Listening to Urban Rhythms: Soundscapes in Popular Music 143 7 Representing Digital Spaces: Videogames and the Digital Humanities 169 Conclusion 195 Notes 197 References 245 Index 269 TTTThhhhiiiissss ppppaaaaggggeeee iiiinnnntttteeeennnnttttiiiioooonnnnaaaallllllllyyyy lllleeeefffftttt bbbbllllaaaannnnkkkk Acknowledgments Although much of my previous work has been interdisciplinary in one way or another, this book in particular would not have been possible without the implicit and explicit encouragement of the scholars who have been my guides. First, thanks to Malcolm Alan Compitello and Susan Larson for showing by example that interdisci- plinary work crossing the humanities and geography is worthwhile and important—even if it brings with it a specific set of challenges. Thanks go, too, to those within Hispanic Studies who have been particularly open to new forms of scholarship—not only to the edi- tors, boards, reviewers, and readers of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies and the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies but also those of forward-thinking journals such as Hispania and Chasqui. In addi- tion to Malcolm and Susan, thanks go also to Eugenia Afinoguénova, Ed Baker, Francie Cate-Arries, Monica Degen, David William Foster, Daniel Frost, Rebecca Haidt, Christine Henseler, David Herzberger, Amanda Holmes, Sheri Long, Randolph Pope, Carlos Ramos, Nathan Richardson, Marcy Schwartz, Steven Spalding, Michael Ugarte, and David Wiseman, who in particular, in one way or another, have encour- aged me to think differently about stretching the limits of disciplinary knowledge. Thanks to Araceli Masterson-Algar and Stephen Vilaseca for agree- ing to join me in forming the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, and thanks to those who follow and contribute to that journal’s accompa- nying multiauthored blog, urbanculturalstudies.wordpress.com. The esteemed members of the journal’s editorial board also deserve my thanks. Most of all, I am grateful to Masoud Yazdani at Intellect, who supported the formation of that new interdisciplinary journal. In particular, I am fortunate to have the welcoming colleagues I have found at East Carolina University (ECU) since starting on July 1, 2014. I must thank John Sutherland, John Stevens, Derek Maher,