Nocturnal City

Robert Shaw is a lecturer in geography at Newcastle University, UK. He received his PhD from Durham University in 2012, and he subsequently worked at Durham until 2015, before joining Newcastle. With his research interests in the urban night, he has explored the production of night-time city life in the UK, changing street-lighting technologies and most recently the Nuit Debout protest movement in Paris. His work has also been published in several academic journals. His personal webpage is www.rob-shaw.net, and he can be found on Twitter as @WhatIsRobShaw.

• IntroductionChapter 1 Changing spaces, changing times: urban futuresHow is the world urban? Contemporary urban theoryUrban machines: environment, society and the selfNight and the limits of the cityChapter 2 Fragmenting frontier: night, time and the cityNight in pre-industrial societiesElectrificationProduction at nightNight as frontierPeople who go bump in the night: the nocturnalsFragmentation and affects of incessancy on the edge of the cityChapter 3 Nocturnal ecologies and infrastructuresArtificial lighting as a condition of nocturnal possibilityLight pollution, carbon use and the ecological impacts of the night-time cityChanges to urban lighting and global challengesBeyond lighting: infrastructural frontiers at nightLiving with darkness: infrastructure and the possibilities of urban expansionChapter 4 Nightlife and night-time economyBooze, bingeing and beer: the night-time economy in the UKCreating nightlife: the emergence of the British night-time economyBeing nocturnal: night-time subjectivitiesGlobal nocturnal leisureContact zones of nightlifeChapter 5 Aesthetics of the night-time cityIlluminations and conviviality: developing a night-time aestheticsWalking, exploration, graffiti: a counter-aesthetics of the night?Cities at night and place marketingThe aesthetics of the night and what it means to be urbanChapter 6 The domestic nightShaping the domestic night: from comfort to controlHome, subjectivity and nightHome: at the edge of urban and beyondChapter 7 Towards nightology and the temporal limits to urbanismPlanetary urbanization: many cities, many planetsThree narratives of the urban–world–night relationshipTowards nightologyIndex

"Shaw’s book explores the way humans interface with the darkness that night brings while making the argument that the night should be, in and of itself, an object of research. The book takes the reader on a journey over time and space through the urban night. Throughout the book issues of race, gender, and sexuality are addressed. While the author notes there are “some gaps”, this book provides a fairly comprehensive survey of geographical and social theories and research about the human experience at night. Further chapters in the book introduce such concepts as light pollution, nocturnal ecologies, the night-time economy, and the domestic night. The range of topics covered outlines just how much the night has an effect on both humans and ecological systems within the urban environment. -Robert Shaw, The Nocturnal City (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 126, ISBN: 9781138676404