The “Cultural Archipelago” of Urban Representation in Contemporary Brazilian Novels

The dialectic of localism and cosmopolitanism, with the opposition between nationalists and cosmopolitans, since independence and perhaps even before, is an element that structured the spiritual life and the literature of a country such as Brazil, as it was pointed out by Antonio Candido. This dialectic in a globalized country which had been transformed by an extremely rapid urbanization, nowadays is perhaps stronger than ever. That could be seen in contemporary literature, on the level of the imaginary but also on the level of the representation of cities such as Manaus in the north of the country (Relato de um certo Oriente, by Milton Hatoum), Recife in the northeast (Estive lá fora, by Ronaldo Correia de Brito), or Brasilia in the central west (Cidade Livre, by João Almino). Through these three novels, this essay aims to analyze how a few years after the end of the dictatorship, at a time marked by important changes in Brazilian society, the fiction grasps the articulation between local specificities and the “globalized” city. To that extent, the reading of many urban contemporary fictions will build a kind of mosaic of Brazil and its cultural varieties, through the prism of the city.

Paris: A Poem by Hope Mirrlees: The liminal world of Paris in 1919

Paris: A Poem by Hope Mirrlees is a modernist ‘curiosity’ which remained largely unknown due to the peculiar conditions of its original publication. In recent years, however, it has regained its place within the field of modernist studies due to the efforts of Julia Briggs and Sandeep Parmar. Instead of approaching the poem through established categories of urban representation, such as flânerie, urban phantasmagoria or the urban palimpsest, this article focuses on Paris, then in the midst of the 1919 Peace Conference, as a liminal space and site of Bakhtinian carnival. This framework advances an understanding of the poem as a complete and complex work of art. The article argues that the peculiar structure and formal organization of the poem, and its relation to the reality of Paris in 1919 and beyond, turns the poem into a liminal space of its own, thus doubling the city it speaks of.

Urban-climate interactions during summer over eastern North America

The urban heat island is a representative urban climate characteristic, which can affect heat-stress conditions and extreme precipitation that are closely connected with human life. Better understanding of urban-climate interactions, therefore, is crucial to ultimately support better planning and adaptation in various application fields. This study assesses urban-climate interactions during summer for eastern North America using regional climate model simulations at 0.22° resolution. Two regional climate model experiments, with and without realistic representation of urban regions, are performed for the 1981–2010 period. Comparison of the two experiments shows higher mean temperatures and reduced mean precipitation in the simulation with realistic urban representation, which can be attributed primarily to reduced albedo and soil moisture for the urban regions in this simulation. Furthermore, the mean temperature and precipitation in the simulation with improved urban representation is also closer to that observed. Analysis of short-duration precipitation extremes for climatologically different sub-regions, however, suggests that, for higher temperatures, the magnitudes of precipitation extremes are generally higher in the simulation with realistic urban representation, particularly for coastal urban regions, and are collocated with higher values of convective available potential energy and cloud fraction. Enhanced sea and lake breezes associated with lower sea level pressure found around these regions, contribute additional water vapor and further enhance dynamic convective development, leading to higher precipitation intensities. Analysis of temperature extremes clearly demonstrates that urban regions experience aggravated heat-stress conditions due to relatively higher temperatures despite reduced relative humidity. Double the number of extreme heat spells lasting six or more days are noted for the coastal urban regions in the study domain. This study, in addition to demonstrating the differences in urban-climate interactions for climatologically different regions, also demonstrates the need for better representation of urban regions in climate models to generate realistic climate information.

Global NWP Modeling of urban environments at ~1km resolution

<p>Urban areas make up only a small fraction of the Earth’s surface; however, they are home to over 50% of the global population. Accurate numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecasts in these areas offer clear societal benefits; however, land-atmosphere interactions are significantly different between urban and non-urban environments. Forecasting urban weather requires higher model resolution than the size of the urban domain, which is often achievable by regional but not global NWP models. Here we present the preliminary implementation of an urban scheme within the land surface component of the global Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), at recently developed ~1km horizontal resolution. We evaluate the representation error of fluxes and NWP variables at coarser resolutions (~9 km and ~31 km), using the high resolution as truth. We evaluate the feasibility of the scheme and its urban representation at ~1km scales. Availability of urban mapping data limit the affordable complexity of the global scheme; however, using generalisations model performance is improved over urban sites, even adopting simple schemes, and the modelled Urban Heat Island effects show broad agreement with observations. Several directions for future work are explored including a more complex urban representation, restructuring of the urban tiling and the introduction of an urban emissions model for trace gas emissions.<strong> </strong></p>

Moving from the Margins: Towards an Inclusive Urban Representation of Older People in Zimbabwe’s Policy Discourse

Population ageing has become a major global demographic shift but perhaps less noticeable in the Global South. Zimbabwe, like many African countries, is experiencing and will continue to witness an increase in older age, hence questioning its readiness to handle such change. Ageing in Zimbabwe is currently occurring in the context of increasing poverty, political unrest, changing family structures, and weakening infrastructures. Despite this, Zimbabwe is committed to promoting change and betterment for its citizens through adherence to international agendas and national development strategies. However, the first step towards the realisation of an inclusive urban environment begins with a fair representation of the various actors and social groups. This review paper is aimed at examining the representation of Zimbabwe’s older people, a subject that has rarely been the focus of critical analysis, concentrating on the political discourse in urban development programmes. A sample of 45 international and national policy documents published post-2002, was carefully selected and inspected to determine the level of presence of older people using discourse analysis. The findings reveal that in the context of the efforts made towards a Zimbabwe that is inclusive of all citizens, the idea of older persons as subjects of rights and active participants has yet to truly gain sufficient currency. There is a dominance of a one-dimensional perspective across the majority of the publications, with older people constructed as “dependent”, “vulnerable” and “passive”, overseeing vital contributions to society. A realistic and more empowering representation of this social group, showing them as active caregivers rather than passive recipients is therefore a necessity if Zimbabwe is to fulfil its vision of inclusivity.

The Video, the City, and the Spectator: The Architecture and Its Bodies in Front of a Video Camera

This paper is an investigation into the kinds of spectatorial relationships that could be generated when a moving image (video, in this case) presents a city within a political framing. To this end I will analyse three different case studies in which the city—its architecture, and its population—is the polemical common ground of the artwork: Guilty Landscape episode I—Hangzhou by Dries Verhoeven (2016), Sign on a Truck by Jenny Holzer (1984), and Història Urbanística by Video-Nou (1978). In my argumentation, I will adhere generally to Jean Baudrillard’s conceptualisations in terms of media “responsibility”, and those of Jacques Rancière when focused on the term “dissensus”, understood as the essence of politics. Importantly, and worth emphasising, all moving image works are able to mirror the spectator who, through different devices and spatial settings, becomes an active part of the representation itself: and a representation that does not require a form of response is a curtailment that does nothing but amplify the decision-making power of the powerful. Instead, Dries Verhoeven, Jenny Holzer, and Video-Nou confront us with their representations and bid us towards an active personal participation in its construction. Moreover, this could be considered as a reflection upon what might feasibly be achieved today in architecture and urban representation through various new media and their intersections with the moving image and performative arts.

A razão agoniza em uma casa vazia: modernismo arquitetônico no filme O Desafio

Paulo César Saraceni’s The dare (1965) is a milestone of the Brazilian Cinema Novo. Considered the first cinematographic movie to openly address the 1964 civil-military coup, it also inaugurated a lineage of intimate Rio films, committed to reading beyond the representation of the city through postcard images. The film pays special attention to the scenarios, especially houses and apartments, defining the political and psychological contours of the characters through their interaction with the environments. In this article I make explicit the impact caused by this new form of urban representation and, finally, I make the analysis of two sequences, in which an almost empty modernist house is set against a burning, ruined pension. The aim is to demonstrate that, while the contours of these scenarios define the protagonists’ conflicts, the actions taken in each environment add meaning to the architecture.