Results by title
205 books match the query 'City' and 4 start with l
LA Sports
Play, Games, and Community in the City of AngelsWayne Wilson
University of Arkansas Press, 2018
Land of Water, City of the Dead
Religion and Cahokia's EmergenceSarah E. Baires
University of Alabama Press, 2017
Explores the embodiment of religion in the Cahokia land and how places create, make meaningful, and transform practices and beliefs
Cahokia, the largest city of the Mississippian mound cultures, lies outside present-day East St. Louis. Land of Water, City of the Dead reconceptualizes Cahokia’s emergence and expansion (ca. 1050–1200), focusing on understanding a newly imagined religion and complexity through a non-Western lens. Sarah E. Baires argues that this system of beliefs was a dynamic, lived component, based on a broader ontology, with roots in other mound societies. This religion was realized through novel mortuary practices and burial mounds as well as through the careful planning and development of this early city’s urban landscape.
Baires analyzes the organization and alignment of the precinct of downtown Cahokia with a specific focus on the newly discovered and excavated Rattlesnake Causeway and the ridge-top mortuary mounds located along the site axes. Land of Water, City of the Dead also presents new data from the 1954 excavations of the ridge-top mortuary Wilson Mound and a complete analysis of the associated human remains. Through this skeletal analysis, Baires discusses the ways that Cahokians processed and buried their ancestors, identifying unique mortuary practices that include the intentional dismemberment of human bodies and burial with marine shell beads and other materials.
Le Corbusier
The City of Refuge, Paris 1929/33Brian Brace Taylor
University of Chicago Press, 1988
Brian Brace Taylor draws on extensive archival research to reconstruct each step of the architect's attraction to the commission, his design process and technological innovations, the social and philosophical compatibility of the Salvation Army with Le Corbusier's own ideas for urban planning, and finally, the many modifications required, first to eliminate defects and later to accommodate changes in the services the building provided. Throughout, Taylor focuses on Le Corbusier's environmental, technological, and social intentions as opposed to his strictly formal intentions. He shows that the City of Refuge became primarily a laboratory for the architect's own research and not simply a conventional solution to residents' requirements or the Salvation Army's program.
Lost in the City
Tree of Desire and Serafin: Two novels by Ignacio SolaresBy Ignacio Solares
University of Texas Press, 1998
Cristina, the young protagonist of Tree of Desire, and her little brother Joaquín run away from a home that is outwardly normal, but inwardly disfunctional. Lost on the streets of Mexico City, they confront some of the most terrifying aspects of city life. Or is it all a dream? The story suggests, without confirming, that sexual abuse has driven Cristina to her desperate escape. But is it an escape? Are they awakening from a dream, or reentering a nightmare?
Serafín, too, is lost in the city. Searching for his father who has deserted the family, he is virtually helpless amid the city dangers. Serafín finds compassion in surprising places, but will he survive to return to his mother and their rural village?
These two novels by one of Mexico's premier writers illuminate many aspects of contemporary Mexican life. Solares describes Mexico's different social classes with Dickensian realism. His focus on young protagonists, unusual in Mexican literature, opens a window onto problems of children's vulnerability that know no national borders. At the same time, his use of elements of the fantastic and the paranormal, and his evocative writing style, make reading his novels a most pleasurable experience.