Word on the Street

Abstract

As the site of everyday social interaction, the street has always provided a source of inspiration for writers, artists and musicians. It has also become the focus for critical theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau in their attempt to push the limits of textual analysis beyond literature and art towards our daily experience of the world. This collection of essays and interviews examines the street as both the site and space of competing discourses and also a form of discourse in its own right. Covering a broad range of topics including the role of the street in literature, photography and journalism, practices which take place upon the street such as skateboarding, graffiti and flânerie and the politics and philosophy involved in negotiating the street, Word on the Street affirms the continued and renewed importance of the pedestrian street in the social consciousness of the 21st century