The Tides: Maluku’s Untold Stories

Editor’s note: This is the fifth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Fendy Tulodo In the vast archipelago of Indonesia, Maluku stands as a region shaped by both its turbulent history and its deep connection to the sea. Once the epicenter of […]

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Nakuru Waters: A New City on the Edge of Kenya’s Great Rift

Arial view of the Kenya town of Nakuru

Editor’s note: This is the third post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Gitonga Njeru Phillip Kilemia, aged 63, was born and raised in Nakuru. The businessman has seen the city grow to what it has become today. “Faced with myriad challenges, it […]

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Forgotten Urban Currents: The Role of Subterranean Rivers in Shaping Modern Cities

Editor’s note: This is the second post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By AN In cities across the world, rivers once central to daily life now flow unseen beneath layers of concrete and asphalt. These subterranean rivers–natural waterways that have been buried, diverted, […]

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Introducing The City Aquatic

photo of the trimaran boat used in Waterworld which resembles something out of Mad Max

Editor’s note: This is the first post for April 2025’s The City Aquatic theme. See here for additional entries in the theme. Thirty years ago, Universal Pictures released Waterworld, directed by Kevin Reynolds and starring Kevin Costner as a balding amphibious mutant who traverses the world on his trimaran, a boat that film critic Roger […]

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George Romero’s Pittsburgh: City of the Living Dead

title card for the film with in black and white reading "George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead"

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth and final post in our theme for February 2025, “Celluloid City,” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Victoria Timpanaro October 1, 1968 was the world premiere of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living […]

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THE CITIZEN, FILM, AND INDIA’S NATION-BUILDING PROJECT: A QUEST FOR MODERNITY

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth post in our theme for February 2025, “Celluloid City,” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Shruti Hussain We lock eyes with a stream of children, of women and men, peering straight at the camera […]

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Edward W. Lewis’s Life in Harlem: A City of Contrasts

Black and white photograph from 1940 of an Arican American man wearing apron standing in doorway of Harlem grocery store, with sign, "Our Own Community Grocery & Delicatessen," above.

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in our theme for February 2025, “Celluloid City,” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here By Alyssa Lopez In March 1935, when sixteen-year-old Lino Rivera pocketed a knife while cutting through the S.H. Kress dime […]

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Megalopolis and the 15-Minute City

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in our theme for February 2025 “Celluloid City” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Jannat Suleman Since the introduction of the theoretical 15-minute city, there’s been significant nitpicking at the so-called socialist concept […]

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Building the Golden City: Rome in the Gladiator Films

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in The Metropole’s theme for February 2025 “Celluloid City” which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Grace Gillies The Rome in both Gladiator films is a landscape of monumental architecture subtly but pervasively inflected […]

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