City limits

Gail Weiss

City, 2005, vol. 9, issue 2, 215-224

Abstract: City limits are to be seen not only as geographical and temporal boundaries but also as perceived and effective horizons imposed by social arrangements. Making use of both philosophical and fictional resources, Gail Weiss develops an inter‐corporeal cartography of the city that explores how these horizons impinge on people's lives. Drawing on the work of Merleau‐Ponty and Elizabeth Grosz, this paper moves from the demise of a 'dead‐end street’ as represented in G. Naylor's novel 'The Women of Brewster Street’ to some critical individual turning‐points in Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway’ (for further discussion of the relevance of Virgina Woolf's work see Jeri Johnson, 'Literary Geography: Joyce, Woolf and the City’, City 4(2), pp. 199--214). One such turning point is the death, a suicide, of one of Woolf's characters who refuses to pay the price of adapting to the established rhythms of the city. That such constraints can be challenged is suggested, though in this case not entirely satisfactorily, by the architectural example of Peter Eisenham's Wexner Center for the Performing Arts in the city of Columbia, USA. Constraints, limits and horizons have, then, to be seen as also potential sites of opportunity, 'in‐between’ spaces, where social transformation is possible.

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1080/13604810500197004

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