Persistent cities : creative ruination in Latin America and Europe
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This work explores the concept and manifestations of urban ruination in Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon and Bucharest over a period of more than a century. My analysis focuses on the ways in which ruination is creative rather than destructive. Material decay is often associated with negative phenomena, but in this work I show how ruination, a very specific, protean type of decay, is a process that opens up spaces for artistic creativity. In these case studies, ruination emerges in fiction and street art, and it has three different faces. In the novel "Dom Casmurro" (1899) by Machado de Assis, ruination produces relics that saturate the protagonist's homes and the text he is writing. In "Livro do Desassossego" (1982) by Fernando Pessoa, ruination happens at the level of the semi-heteronym's self and exists on the same spectrum as the ruins of Carmo Convent and contemporary street art in Lisbon. Finally, in the trilogy "Blinding" (1996-2007) by Romanian novelist Mircea Cărtărescu, ruination is what connects the city of Bucharest and the identity of the protagonist as a writer. Street art in the Romanian capital similarly derives its power from buildings in ruination, where their materiality serves as the canvas and medium for a rich variety of works.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Dancu, Elena Adriana |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich |
| Thesis advisor | Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich |
| Thesis advisor | Barletta, Vincent |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Zephyr L, 1970- |
| Degree committee member | Barletta, Vincent |
| Degree committee member | Frank, Zephyr L, 1970- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Comparative Literature. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Elena Adriana Dancu. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Comparative Literature. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Elena Adriana Dancu
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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