Public Space/Contested Space: Imagination and Occupation (The Metropolis and Modern Life)

It is not possible to be alive today in the United States without feeling the influence of the political climate on the spaces where people live, work, and form communities. Public Space/Contested Space illustrates the ways in which creative interventions in public space have constituted a significant dimension of contemporary political action, and how this space can both reflect and spur economic and cultural change.

Drawing insight from a range of disciplines and fields, the essays in this volume assess the effectiveness of protest movements that deploy bodies in urban space, and social projects that build communities while also exposing inequalities and presenting new political narratives. With sections exploring the built environment, artists, and activists and public space, the book brings together the diverse voices to reveal the complexities and politicization of public space within the United States.

Public Space/Contested Space provides a significant contribution to an understudied dimension of contemporary political action and will be a resource to students of urban studies and planning, architecture, sociology, art history, and human geography.

Kevin D. Murphy is Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of the Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he was on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Sally O’Driscoll is Professor of English and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Fairfield University. Her work on 18th-century literature and culture has appeared in such journals as Signs, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, and Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation.