ABSTRACT
“Interdisciplinary Urban Complexity Research and Texts as Qualitative Models” outlines a contribution of literary urban studies to inter- and transdisciplinary urban complexity research by discussing textual models of the urban as complementary to the currently dominant quantitative models. Without denying their usefulness for a vast number of purposes, it will be argued that quantitative models are characterised by abstraction and aggregation and thus are generally not concerned with local or individual specificity. On the other hand, qualitative models are frequently designed to capture just that. More narrowly, literary texts serve as a particular type of qualitative model: By focusing precisely on the representation of specific places, of individual responses and of patterns of sense-making, they are diametrically opposed to quantitative models in their selection of which elements of complex urban reality to include or to leave out. As an alternative form of ‘modelling’ urban complexity, literary texts are thus shown to function as a complementary type of ‘urban model’.
