Browsing by Subject "London"
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Item Delicacy or shame : Christopher Isherwood’s obscured sexuality in Lions and shadows(2013-05) Stevenson, Katharine A.; Carter, MiaChristopher Isherwood’s 1938 autobiographical novel Lions and Shadows is often read in light of its subtitle as the story of “an education in the ‘twenties.” Yet Isherwood’s early work is more than a simple interwar bildungsroman. Lions and Shadows is a narratively complicated account of a privileged, queer youth in interwar England and an exposition of the effects of the Great War on an entire generation. The autobiographical novel provides veiled descriptions of the queer cultures of Cambridge and London in the 1920s, and records the early artistic development of several members of what has come to be called “The Auden Generation,” including Edward Upward, W.H. Auden, and Stephen Spender. In this project, I explore how and why Christopher Isherwood obscures his sexuality in Lions and Shadows, looking in particular at his friendships with Edward Upward and W.H. Auden and at the fictional work that the former friendship produced, The Mortmere Stories. Chapter 1 provides background information on homosexuality in England during Isherwood’s lifetime, focusing on how class and privilege affect the experience and expression of homosexuality. Chapter 2 analyzes the obsession with the Great War that pervades Lions and Shadows, concentrating on how the Great War affected ideas of masculinity and male sexuality. Finally, Chapter 3 explores the relationship between Isherwood’s social and sexual discomfort and the production and content of The Mortmere Stories, which tend to poke fun at sexual foibles and the proclivities of the upper classes.Item Imagining London : the urban geographies of Iain Sinclair's *London Orbital* and Zadie Smith's *NW*(2015-05) Iverson, Nicole Ashley; Carter, Mia; Boyle, Casey AndrewIn *World City*, Doreen Massey traces how two strong narratives about London have dominated political rhetoric about the city since the 1960s, creating a rigid “geographical imagination” that has been perpetuated through the government and business up to the contemporary moment. Two writers very attentive to these questions about how places in London are overwritten with particular narratives—Iain Sinclair and Zadie Smith—draw specific attention to the built environment as a complex and integral part of the problem Massey identifies. Sinclair’s *London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25* and Smith’s *NW* both perform practices of perceiving and engaging space—that could also be called mapping—in ways that foreground how spatial imaginations are at play in everyday life. Through these practices, which have a strong affinity with Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of mapping in *One Thousand Plateaus*, their works explore how what happens in London confounds the stultified geographical imagination that Massey describes. As a result, their books incite fundamental shifts in narrow conceptions of space through experimenting with form and genre. *London Orbital* and *NW* imagine real worlds, but rather than taking on realism’s focus on human subjectivity in the form of character, they investigate the architectures of London to describe how a multitude of objects and structures and, of course, people, make and remake the city. Their formal attention to space allows them to imagine a distribution of agency among human actors and the built environment.Item Making place(2013-12) Yun, Jihye; Atkinson, Simon, Ph. D.; Almy, DeanAs cities across the world have grown and continue to grow in many ways and for many reasons, it is anticipated that the growth of population will come from all over the world. In turn, it will influence on our urban environment economically, socially, culturally, and ecologically. Like other cities, London is making a plan -creating 326,000 new homes and 776,000 jobs - to tackle issues of the city. A series of new emerging developments across London will contribute to the changing face of the city. A lot of interventions spreading through the city are focused on the economic forces and to take advantages of real estate of London by projecting offices, apartment which is mostly market-housing, and hotels. They swept away existing contexts and replaced with higher density buildings obtaining large profits, building high rise, filling gaps between buildings with gated car parks on the ground floors, and building over open spaces. Ground floors remain blind, and tall office blocks make the overshadowed open square inhospitable and wind turbulence. Most initiatives do not seem to contribute to urban life, but may possibly become the slums of tomorrow. Now, it is time to think about how to make sense of an environment which is safe, pleasant and healthy with a sense of identity, and how to contribute to neighborhoods, visitors and new comers. In dense inner city area, since place is an invitation where neighborhood meets city, urban design must meet needs of commuters, visitors, travelers, and residents equally by combining place, amenity, and movement. Therefore, this study is to investigate ‘How city’s agenda combine with, and support local neighborhood needs’, and to redefine the quality of city life through qualities of comfort, accessibility, amenity, education, experience, and nature.Item Testimonies of change : experiences in social justice activism in Austin, TX and London, UK(2011-05) Mott, Michelle Lea; Carrington, Ben, 1972-; Richardson, MatthewIn this thesis, the author draws upon data collected through in-depth interviews with twelve social justice activists and organizers in London, UK and Austin, TX to look at contemporary practices of feminist antiracist social justice work. Informed by the Civil Rights, feminist and antiracist social movements of 1960s and 70s, activists and organizers in the United States continue to build upon theoretical understandings of intersecting systems of oppression to build new practices of community and racial justice.