现代主义还是后现代主义?——城市史研究的理论问题

Modernism or Post-modernism:Theory of Urban History in Question

20世纪以来,因应欧美城市化经历的多次重要转型和城市社会的变迁,城市史研究领域大量成果出版,研究群体日益壮大。最重要的是研究视野得到极大开阔,城市史研究理论不断推陈出新。“生态主义”“城市主义”“新马克思主义”等城市理论为城市史研究拓展了研究思路,丰富了研究主题。脱胎于社会学的城市史研究形成两种关于现代城市研究的早期路径:芝加哥学派的城市社会学和以问题为导向的区域主义。后现代主义以批判现代主义之名而生,但是从早期现代城市理论出发,爬梳相关理论,可以发现后现代主义一直存在现代主义的特征和经典议题。现代主义和后现代主义不是简单的二分,而是处在一种纠缠关系中。就城市史研究的书写和实践来看,不论是现代主义还是后现代主义,城市理论对城市史研究都具有重要的指导意义。

Since the twentieth century,urban history has seen the growth of publications and researchers in response to many essential transformations of urbanization and changes in European and American cities.Most importantly,research perspectives have been considerably broadened,and various theories of urban history studies have been developed.Urban theories such as“ecologism,”“urbanism,”and“neo-Marxism”have broadened urban history studies’perspectives and enriched urban history’s themes.Urban history,born from sociology,learned from two early urban studies approaches:the Chicago School’s urban sociology and problem-oriented regionalism.Postmodernism was born as a critique of modernism.However,a review of related theories from early modern urban theory reveals the persistence of modernist features and classical issues in postmodernism.Modernism and postmodernism are not simply dichotomies but entangled pairs.Urban theory has an important role to play in urban history research,whether modernism or postmodernism.