CALL FOR PAPERS – THE URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY JOURNAL 22 (2023)
New York – Place, Metaphor, Language(s)
With time, New York has changed into the ultimate American frontier (see, for example Kasperson&Minghi, 2011, The Structure of Political Geography), which may appear as a paradox, as it functioned, for a long while, as the first meeting point with America. New York is more than a modern citadel: is functions as an icon of cosmopolitanism, as a conceptual metaphor of metropolis where actual geography, buildings, artifacts, personal success and personal failure have evolved as image schemata of individual and collective identity.
As a geographic place, New York was caught between two European colonial powers (the Dutch and the British) and functioned as a capital of the United States for a short five years; after that, it became the ”capital of the world”, where time is measured via a special unit (”a New York minute”); New York is a complex rhetorical figure, derived from its status as an image schemata and a conceptual metaphor – it is the antonomasia (”capital of the world”, ”center of the world”) while Manhattan, one of its five boroughs, acts as a synecdoche of the city, and, by extension, of the world.
As the ultimate center of social, esthetic and political inovation that reverberate worldwide, New York has redefined, in the latest decade, and, mostly during the pandemic, its status as a sanctuary state, as the place of multiple identities, equity, new cultures, remapping space/time/language(s). The most fertile urban field of ethnographies, conflict resolution, emerging geopraphies, New York welcomes a plural reading of all that is global/local/individual.
Reflections on ”old New York”, with its communities, languages, cultures are also welcome; Jewish New York will be considered as one of the most iconic definition of New York as the ultimate place of success, trauma, artistic creativity, inclusiveness of Jewish emigrees from all around the world, but mainly from Europe. Studies on the Romanian-Jewish New York (Lower East Side, the Yiddish Theater, other representative places and figures) are especially useful to this issue, as are studies on Romanian places/representation/presences in New York.
The issue will be dedicated (but not restricted to) the following topics:
- New York- image schemata and conceptual metaphor(s)
- Urban and social mapping – languages, cultures, architecture, gentrification, migration, trans-nationalism, post-Covid social and racial mapping
- New York as the space of world memory (museums, monuments, universal exhibits/ ”World Fair”)
- New York – imagology/fiction (”Others” about New York/ „Others” in New York- films, fiction)
- Jewish New York/ The Jewish Romanian immigration in New York
- The Romanian New York (metaphors, places, trauma, stereotypes)
The issue also welcomes short book/album reviews, pertaining to the aforementioned topics.
For publication guidelines, please check the following link: https://rev-antropologieurbana.ro/trimitere-articol/?lang=en
DEADLINE FOR ARTICLE SUBMISSION: 30TH OF SEPTEMBER 2023
Why an Urban Anthropology Journal?
Urban anthropology occupies a sequence of general anthropology and concerns about the human groups or individuals living in urban areas. Urbanization is an anthropological process which produces a continuous change in the developing of our species.
Urban anthropology includes all changes made by moving from rural to urban and follows the noble human adventure further the urbanization, industrialization, post industrialization to the information society, whicg is in its beginnings. And it will register, in time, mutations, however small changes in the human condition.
Louis Dupré. The traveler’s workshop
In „Revue des deux mondes” (1839), the French writer and political economist Louis Reybaud, seeking to capture the essence of travel literature, presents a possible portrait of the writer-traveler: “The traveler is a special being, so dynamic and impressive that,...
In the Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic Testimony of a Doctor From the Front Lines
by Cristiana OPREA Senior Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Dr. Victor Babeş Clinical Hospital for Infectious and Tropical Diseases Associate Professor at the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest cristiana_oprea@umfcd.ro MOTTO “A...
Pipes, chibouks, and tobacco
Tobacco was cultivated and traded in the Romanian Principalities since the seventeenth century, as evidenced by the taxes („tobacco cultivation tax”) and customs duties ("outside tax" or "inside tax") collected. The amplitude of the smoking custom developed during the...
The mechanisms of culture. An evolutionary perspective
Genetics, epigenetics, psychology, and anthropology investigate the multiple dimensions of evolution, in which the mechanisms of transmission of genetic or cultural information operate. New studies in the field of epigenetics reveal that the experiences of our...
