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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page research paper that, first of all, presents the principal thesis of Rappaport's Shopping for Pleasure (2000), and then compares it with Schwartz's thesis in Spectacular Realities (1998), arguing that the two approaches are quite similar. The writer feels that both authors argue that the structure of urban life (in London and Paris, respectively) changed urban sensibilities in the late nineteenth century, focusing primarily on Schwartz's work. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khrapsch.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
sociological history of one particular area of the city from the 1850s to 1914. Rappaports account demonstrates how the actions and actors of that era were defined by the sense
of space and place dictated by the urban environment (Stein, 2003). Rappaport shows how the interaction between "merchants, feminists, the law, the popular press, and the culture of the music
hall and stage" served to construct the formation of the urban character (Stein, 2003, p. 319). For example, Rappaport, in particular, shows to the extent that shopping opened up new
roles for women by allowing them to move unescorted through the city streets. She writes that "Shopping became one of the primary fault lines in Victorian and Edwardian culture (as)
it challenged perceived notions of stable class and gender identities and clearly demarcated physical spaces" (Rappaport, 2000, p. 221). Vanessa Schwartz takes a similar look at fin-de-siecle Paris and makes
a similar argument (1998). During the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris became the acknowledged entertainment capital of the world. Within the sparkling, redesigned city, one encountered
crowds intent on enjoying themselves and the multi-sensory amusements available in the city, as well as the spectacle of the city itself. Schwartz (1998) discusses the immense popularity of such
urban phenomena as boulevards, wax museums, and the public display of corpses at the Paris morgue. Drawing on an immense range of both written and visual materials, Schwartz, like
Rappaport, argues that these "spectacular realities," like shopping in the West End, helped to form the basis for what we think of now as modern society. Rather than seeing modern
life as producing an array of distractions that ultimately alienate people from one another, Schwartz, like Rappaport, sees this as shaping an urban communality. Schwartz quotes Isherwood as saying that
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