Brooklyn Fictions: the Contemporary Urban Community in a Global Age.

New York is an iconic city in the public imagination, a city that perhaps more than any other is a represented and imagined place, one familiar even to those who have never visited it from television, film, visual art and literature. It is famed for its iconic buildings, its glamour, its cultural vibrancy, its diversity and its liberal attitudes. Though Manhattan continues to dominate international perceptions and to epitomise all the cliches of streets paved with gold, bright lights and abundant opportunities to live the dream, it is Brooklyn that has become in the last couple of decades a magnet for writers, artists and film makers. This is not just a question of real estate (and there are now parts of Brooklyn every bit as outrageously expensive as anything in Manhattan), but a sense that Brooklyn, in the words of writer Tim McLoughlin, is "the world's biggest small town," a place where traditional values of community, face-to-face contact and tolerance endure. So often taken in popular culture as the embodiment of the US's maxim of unity-in-diversity, Brooklyn has developed a character and a mythology distinct from Manhattan's, and one fuelled by literary and filmic representations. As much as a geograpical location, it has become a state of mind or a convenient marker for certain sets of values. For these reasons, this project takes Brooklyn as a case study to dig deeper behind the popular image, to not only ask why exactly Brooklyn has acquired the perceived values it has, but also to interrogate certain key terms that too often go unquestioned - terms such as "community," "neighbourhood" and "locality." What form do perceived "local" and "traditional" values take in a city renowned as an international crossroads, a place of endless migration and movement, a place with an extraordinarily international population? In a world now generally accepted as "globalised," how do these local values survive in the face of, or in interaction with, global economic and political forces? Are they not in fact created by global capital as a way of diversifying and targeting ever more specific and defined niche markets? And when we celebrate diversity, are we not in fact glorifying only a particular kind of choice, the increased range of consumer options made available through global marketing and population movements? This monograph is the first book devoted to literary representations of New York's most populous borough and the aim of the project is to address these questions by analysing a range of recent fictions about Brooklyn, all of which, to varying degrees, perpetuate or at least explore the myths of the borough. Some of these fictions are already well established in the literary canon, for example Jonathan Lethem's 2003 novel The Fortress of Solitude and Lynne Sharon Schwartz's Leaving Brooklyn; others might be considered popular or even low-brow works, for example Amy Sohn's sex and shopping novels My Old Man and Prospect Park West. All of them have something to say about the unique ways in which Brooklyn has been conceived, and about changing expressions of supposedly timeless ideals such as "community" and "home" in a global age. The literary texts will be used as a vehicle for exploring wider issues of belonging in a time of fluid identities and shifting boundaries. Doctor James Peacock, the project's researcher, is an established scholar of contemporary American fiction who has previously published monographs on Brooklyn writers Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem.

Who will benefit from this research?

This research project, Brooklyn Fictions, will immediately benefit researchers, scholars and students working in the related fields of contemporary American fiction, literary representations of New York, literature and place, regionalism, history, and literature and globalisation. As the "Academic Beneficiaries" section of the form explains, the monograph will also be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of sociology and human geography. However, the project has the potential to benefit people beyond the academy a) by encouraging interested general readers to engage with the works of new authors, some established members of the literary canon (for example, Jonathan Lethem, Colm Toibin), some emerging or in the arena of popular fiction (for example, Amy Sohn) b) by encouraging interested general readers to reappraise the term "community" in the world beyond the literary text, seeing social being not simply as an affirmation of identity, but as a nexus of complex political, cultural, social and economic questions c) by providing new material for bodies already engaged in studies in the area, for example the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College and the Project for New York Writing.

How will they benefit from this research?

The monograph which constitutes the main output from this research, Brooklyn Fictions: the Contemporary Urban Community in a Global Age, will be of interest potentially to all the beneficiaries listed above. Not only will the book offer the potential benefits to readers outlined above, but it will also constitute a valuable resource for institutions such as The Center for the Study of Brooklyn. This is an important centre because it provides primary and secondary resource material for researchers from within and outwith the academy; has a specific civic function in promoting inclusive engagement in public affairs within the borough; and has links with a wide variety of community partners, including Brooklyn College, the Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education and the Municipal Arts Society. I have been in contact with the director of the centre, Gretchen Maneval and it has been agreed that a) I will donate copies of the book to the library there and b) I will meet with people at the centre in September 2012 to discuss the future development of our relationship (presentations, for example). In the spirit of "connected communities" of researchers, this research project will open up opportunities to develop a strong working relationship between my institution, Keele University, and these institutions in Brooklyn. This is likely to lead in the future to staff and student exchanges, for example Visiting Fellows at the David Bruce Centre for American Studies at Keele University. My work will provide a useful and important link between literary studies and the community-based work done by the centre. Similarly, inclusion of sections of my research on the online Project for New York Writing (see also "Academic Beneficiaries" section) will reach a wider audience than simply the academic community.

The relationships I have developed with authors will also enable this project to make an impact beyond the academy. Jonathan Lethem, whom I interviewed for my last monograph, has agreed to host me at Pomona College in February 2013 for a public, recorded interview and to lead a workshop for undergraduate literature and creative writing students. Popular fiction author Amy Sohn has agreed to be interviewed for the project in September 2012, and I am going to publish this interview (as I have done with my previous interview with Jonathan Lethem) in a literary journal which reaches a wider readership than literary critics.