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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

private women, public sphere, gender equality

College

Humanities

Department

German and Russian

Abstract

Flanerie is the art of taking a walk, observing the movements and spaces of the city. By writing about cityscapes, urban realms, and the condition of society, flaneurs are able to describe the uniqueness of the metropolis and give life to the modern city—they create for the reader, a “photograph of an urban setting” in which the flaneur promenades.2 In the early nineteenth century, and even today, flaneur literature has been ultimately dominated by men who have documented their cultural and aesthetic interactions with the city. During these past centuries unwritten rules have often excluded the female from participating in parts of the urban society. Today, these unwritten rules are still apparent as many park signs continue to warn us to stay out of secluded areas after dark—implying the possibility of danger for women, but not necessarily for men. Like the unwritten rule of staying out of the park at night; historically, women have also faced the unwritten rule to stay out of the literary scholarship—as they were often excluded from the schools and seen as being uneducated.

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