ABSTRACT
The urban night has been viewed, experienced, narrated and imagined in diverse and complexly entangled ways. For a long time it has caused suspicion in authorities concerned with law and order and has struck horror in lonely street walkers fearful of the surrounding darkness. It has equally appealed to revellers out and about in the small hours and inspired writers and poets with its twilight and flickering shadows, while providing work opportunities to the city’s invisible workers of the “after hours.” Urban Nightlife and Contested Spaces: Cultural Encounters after Dusk brings together a collection of essays that capture the multifarious nature of the urban night, by discussing how it is lived, structured, and reflected upon in diverse cultural and artistic expressions.
