Giving Ground The Politics of Propinquity

Giving Ground is prompted by two phenomena whose paradoxical convergence is currently altering our experience and conception of urban relations and city planning. On the one hand, forces of globalisation push towards conditions of homogenisation and deterritorialisation, while, on the other, a surging politics of identity barricades various groups behind particular claims and ignites violent persecutions. The covert relations between these phenomena is the focus of the essays in this volume. Giving Ground seeks to address a number of broad questions: What is the role and limit of urban space in the expression of group and individual rights and desires? Do democratic social relations require spatial propinquity? What, if any, are the characteristics of democratic urban space? What role does the individuality of cities play in the production of political culture? Contributors: Ariella Azoulay, Etienne Balibar, Lauren Berlant, Joan Copjec, Mark Cousins, Mike Davis, Samuel Delaney, Rosalind Deutsche, Thomas Elsaesser, Dean MacCannell, Michael Sorkin.

Joan Copjec is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture at the State University of New York, Buffalo.

Michael Sorkin is an award-winning architect and Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the City College of New York. His books include The Next Jerusalem, After the World Trade Center, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan and All Over the Map.

Ariela Azoulay teaches political thought and visual culture at Brown University. Her website can be found <a href="http://cargocollective.com/AriellaAzoulay">here</a>.

Étienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher and the most celebrated student of Louis Althusser. He is also one of the leading exponents of French Marxist philosophy and the author of Spinoza and Politics, The Philosophy of Marx and co-author of Race, Nation and Class and Reading Capital.