Comentary by  Luís Baptista (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Abstract

Diálogos Urbanos is a book about proximities and distances between and within cities. Written with a critical perspective, the book faces the dual challenge of revealing what these proximities and distances show and what they hide or  render  invisible.

Diálogos Urbanos forces the cities to talk about themselves, with other cities, and  to unravel some of the significations that affect their territories, their cultural expressions and their assets .

In this book the dialogues are woven into Portuguese, because this language distances and approaches the Portuguese and Brazilian cities here studied.  Here Porto and S. Paulo; there the quaint Bairro Alto and paulistan Bairro da Luz; further beyond, the Praças da Sé (Lisbon and São Paulo). There, Coimbra dialogues with Fortaleza, as do the modern onrushes such as the Parque das Nações and Faria Lima,  or St. Anthony of Lisbon and its Amazon namesake, or patrimonializated samba and fado... Everything so close and so familiar ... At the same time , all so strange and so far ...

Includes articles by Carlos Fortuna, Rogerio Proença Leite, Lúcia Bógus, Claudino Ferreira, Clarissa Gagliardi, João Teixeira Lopes, Heitor Frúgoli Jr., Jessica Sklair, Suzana Pasternak, Fraya Frehse, José Guilherme C. Magnani, Paula Abreu, Ana Rosas Mantecón, Cristina Meneguello, Irlys Alencar Barreira, Roselane Bezerra, Carina Sousa Gomes, Luciana F. Moura Mendonça, Sérgio Ivan Gil Braga, Ana Lúcia Duarte Lanna and Silvana Rubino.

Further information: http://www.ces.uc.pt/cesalmedina/?id=7173