Cities are both real and imaginary places whose identity is dependent on their distinctive heritage: a network of historically transmitted cultural resources. The essays in this volume, which originate from a lecture series at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, explore the complex and multi-layered identities of European cities.
Themes that run through the essays include: nostalgia for a grander past; location between Eastern and Western ideologies, religions and cultures; and the fluidity and palimpsest quality of city identity.
Not only does the book provide different thematic angles and a variety of approaches to the investigation of city identity, it also emphasizes the importance of diverse cultural components. The essays presented here discuss cultural forms as various as music, architecture, literature, journalism, philosophy, television, film, myths, urban planning and the naming of streets.

Katia Pizzi is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London.

Godela Weiss-Sussex is Senior Lecturer in Modern German Literature at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

Contents: Katia Pizzi/Godela Weiss-Sussex: Introduction - Martin Liebscher: Vienna: The Narcissistic Insult - Katia Pizzi: Trieste: A Dissident Port - Nagihan Halilölu: Istanbul Criteria: The Construction of a City Identity - Nevena Dakovi¿: Imagining Belgrade: The Cultural / Cinematic Identity of a City at the Fringes of Europe - Peter Burke: Myths of Venice - Iain Fenlon: Sounding the City: Music, Monteverdi and Mantuan City Identity - Adrian Rifkin: Bayreuth, World City? Or: The Provincial Village as Global
Denkmal
... - Stephen Brockmann: Nuremberg and Its Memories - Godela Weiss-Sussex: Berlin: Myth and Memorialization - Michael Sheringham: Paris - City of Names: Toponymic Trajectories and Mutable Identities - Paul Melo E Castro: Lisbon on Screen: Aspects of Portugal's Capital in Portuguese Cinema - Guido Rings: Madrid: Neo-colonial Spacing in Contemporary Spanish Cinema?