Slavomíra Ferenčuhová, Michaela Šuleřová, Barbora Vacková (eds.): Město [The City ****************************************************************************************** * Hedvika Novotná ****************************************************************************************** Slavomíra Ferenčuhová, Michaela Šuleřová, Barbora Vacková (eds.): Město [The City].Sociáln Studies] 2/2006, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno 2006, 227 pp., ISSN 1 Social Studies (Sociální studia), a scholarly journal published by the Faculty of Social S University in Brno, declares it is an interdisciplinary periodical covering various fields science, particularly sociology, social and cultural anthropology, political science, psyc history, with particular emphasis on the social and cultural context of the problems discu of the journal is monothematic and concentrates on new, as yet unmapped social trends, vie of social science research. One of the most recent issues of this journal covered urban pr editors kept the intentions of the authors open within the framework of a generally limite editorial THE CITY: The Beginning of Urban Studies in the Czech Republic? this intention i possibility of discovering various ways of viewing a city as an object of research in the (mainly) of young researchers in (primarily) the Czech milieu." Thus a pléiade of miscella presented which are divided into three sections"Life in the City is dedicated to a specifi life; the second look - (De)signing cities - reflects the character of the city as an enti and systematically featured in historically changing social conditions; the third approach Image and Sound views the city as a tangible, visual and auditive environment and concurre the "physical" environment of the city and the fact that its users perceive it. Despite th multidepartmentalism in the journal, the sociological approach evidently prevails. This is by the introductory text of the journal (appearing outside of the above-mentioned sections by Dušan Jandák, I.A. Bláha and the Beginnings of Czech Urban Sociology. Bláha's work pres Czech empirical research on the city as well as the first Czech urban sociological theory; functionalism is an original theoretical approach to the study of the city along with M. W and the Chicago School. The section Life in the City is introduced in a translation of Walter Benjamin's text Man which is one of his fragmentary, unfinished sketches exploring the changing urban society century. He is interested in the changes to which its inhabitants are subjected while expe the pressures of their environment. A commentary on the text Benjamin's Baudelairian Texts Benjamin's "Man of the Crowd" was written by Jaroslav Střítecký. Michaela Šuléřová, in the Potential and Limits of City Space,presents a twofold discussion on the quality of city op urban spaces; on one hand, it examines the possibilities of a city for creating societies and further deals with the contemporary discussion of social structure in an urban space. Roman Vido's paper Religious City, Irreligious City is to sketch some aspects of the relat religion and the city and to focus on the multilayered nature and ambiguity of the influen environment on the religious life of the individual as well as society in pre-modern and m The second section, (De)signing cities, is introduced in a translation, this time of the c Purified Cities from Richard Sennett's book The Uses of Disorder. The text deals with the relations incorporated in the process of urban planning. Barbora Vacková is the author of much Light, Air, Joy and Simplicity as Possible..." Features of Utopian Thought in the His Planning, in which she offers a potential approach to ideas of city planning from antiquit which can be found in the philosophical, urban and scientific tradition. The end of the te avant-garde urbanism of the first half of the 20th century, especially the Zlín and Ostrav Růžička, in his article Geography of Social Exclusion, addresses the genesis of urban ghet cities as a result of social and spatial control of the dominant cultural order by excludi this process could be controlled by more inclusive and sensitive urban planning and spatia article by Slavomíra Ferenčuhová, 'Together and Contented'. Images of Integrated Society i attempts to introduce urban planning as a particular field of interest within urban sociol urban change. The example of the city of Brno and an analysis of the document "Strategy fo questions about the role representatives of the city's inhabitants play in attempts to "in society and the importance of the city as a structure of "identification" for its inhabita The third section - The City as Image and Sound - contains two studies. Tomáš Řiháček, in What Does a City Sound Like? The Urban Sonic Environment from a Soundscape Concept Perspec the concept of the sonosphere, which values sound as a source of cultural wealth, and not potential source of annoyance, disturbance and destructive influences. In her paper Town a Kutná Hora during the long 14th Century Blanka Altová follows the linkage between the soci development of Kutná Hora in pre-Hussite times. The journal concludes with three papers which are also connected to the theme: an essay by At Home in Nature, at Home in the City, a research report The Age of a City or Positivist Qualitative Knowledge by Lucie Vidovićová and a review of the book Antony Vidle: Warped Sp Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture by Michal Šimůnek. The monothematic issue of Social Studies with the theme of the City thus presents a self-c the concept of problematics of the City, mainly from the sociological perspective. It reas - and above all, today's city - is a stimulating and many-layered theme for social studies thus creates significant scope for further possible research projects in this field. Hedvika Novotná [ URL "LM-276.html "]