Postmodern City Texts: Toronto, Montreal and Taipei

2010 Fall
Final Exam: Part II

Part I. Close Analysis

II. General Essay Questions:

1. City Concepts:
Here are some of the theories or concepts about modern and postmodern city discussed in class (and also covered in our textbook). Although they are just covered in the form of excerpt or summary, we can still respond to them with our understanding of the fictional texts and our own experience in a city. Please choose one from the list below to --
-- explain what the theorists' ideas are,
-- whether you agree with them, and
-- support your ideas with one text from our class and one example from your own life.

a. human distance and indifference in a city (Wirth's theory of human segmentation and Simmel's theory of the blase.
b. walking and strolling in a city (Michel de Certeau's walking in a city as a narrative; Baudelaire's and Benjamin's theories of the flaneur).
c. Alan Medam: there are two dynamics in cosmopolitan cities: “That they contain the world, that the world comes to live within them” ("From Bridge to Babel" 168)  

2. Concept City-- History: How do city texts and spaces present and/or embody the histories of Taipei, Toronto or Montreal? Do you find a difference in styles (e.g. between the realist and postmodern pluralist style)?  Or different layers of meanings in an urban text as well as urban space (e.g. 寶藏巖 or the other spaces you are familiar with such as 228 Park & Chungshan North Rd.).  
Either choose two fictional texts from our class, or one fictional text from class and one spatial text to analyze. As a conclusion, you can choose to comment on the role of history in a postmodern city. Is a city oblivious of its past? (Note that the historical texts we dealt with are not all postmodern in style.  For instance,
(neo-)realist: The Sandwich Man, La Sarrasine
postmodern: "Canvas of Time," No, Le confessionalle, 〈古都〉, Cosmos)

3. Concept City: System--or Power Structure vs. People on the Margins
How are authorities or power structure represented in two of the following texts: "The Street That Got Mislaid,"〈系統的多重關係〉, Yo-Yo Ma inspired by Bach: The Music Garden, I've Heard the Mermaid Singing and "Rispondetemi"?  How do the characters on the margins, or the artists, respond to those representing power?

4. City Vision and Reading a City Text:
How do we look at a city? How do we read a city text? What determines the ways we view it (e.g. our social and physical position, means of transportation and viewing)? Do you particularly go for (or believe in) a certain way of viewing a city, OR reading a city text? Please first choose a text from our class as an example(s) of viewing/reading a city, and then explain your own method(s).

5. Lived City:
a. Urbanism as a Way of Life
Urbanism, Louis Wirth claims, is a way of life which is characterized by efficiency,
heterogeneity on the one hand, and anonymity, segmentation, as well as superficial and
transitory personal relations (or a shift away from primary relationships to secondary relationships)
on the other. Do you agree that human relations in a city are superficial, transitory, and more marked by their secondary roles than the primary roles?
Use one of the texts we have discussed in class and your own experience to illustrate your points.
(Possible Choices: Vive l'amour, "The Skywalk is Gone"〈公寓導遊〉, Eldorado, Cosmos, The Five Senses, Yi Yi, etc.)

b. Lived City: Spaces of Flows and Chance Encounter.
Choose two of the following texts to analyze their treatments of flows and the spaces of flows. How do the city texts we have read present the rapid flows (of people, commodities, information, virus, capital, etc.), the spaces (streets, subway station, department stores, restaurants, hotels, railroad station, concert hall, [empty] apartment building and homes) where these flows happen, and the ways people use the space to relate to each other?
(Possible Choices: Vive l'amour, "The Skywalk is Gone"〈公寓導遊〉, Eldorado, Cosmos, Penoy's Sunday, 《流浪神狗人》God Man Dog 、《一席之地》 A Place of One's Own, and The Five Senses)