So, Certeau and Favro Walk Into a City and Discuss Structures

          Society perceives a working reality from foundations and  norms dated back to 167 B.C.E. Workers hold agency higher than certain aspects of work environment and time in order to verify their solidarity with co-workers and family (Certeau 1342). "Certeau emphasizes that every writer who describes history and culture is necessarily caught up in the myths and power relations described, and that all historiography should take the writer's subject position into account" (Certeau 1342).  Diane Favro's, The Street Triumphant , takes a historical perspective when it comes to the outlook of the urban impact of Roman triumphal parades. In regards to the reader-response theorists Richter states, "they all have in common the conviction that the audience plays a vitally important role in shaping the literary experience and the desire to help to explain that role" (Richter 962). Both Michel de Certeau and Diane Favro take a city's layout and design to describe how the working foundations impact a culture and cities' people. Dialectical materialism and discourse play a key role in Certeau's description of The World Trade Center and Favro's description of the Roman triumphal parades to show how urban agglomeration over people has diffused over time. Through their descriptions of the two cities Michel de Certeau Marxist's outlook and Diane Favro's New Historicism outlook shows the difference between reading a city as a text verses a city showing dominant cultural trends.

       Diane Favro describes a parade as the pathway through a city. Putting this quote into perspective ponders the reality of how distinct landmarks are created throughout a community. "Delimited by human action, rather than flanking buildings, unifying paving, or set limits, a processional path creates a distinct urban route" (Favro 152). In response to this quote Certeau would state, "linking the city to the concept never makes them identical, but it plays on their progressive symbiosis: to plan a city is both to think the very plurality of the real and to make that way of thinking the plural effective; it is to know how to articulate it and be able to do it" (Certeau 1345). Certeau's Marxist outlook makes him disinterested in the mere architecture of the city and World Trade Center but more interested in how the city can show the dominant cultural trends.  For Certeau no matter how evolved the city is, the city is always a city and is read as a text. Favro looks at the concrete structure of ancient Rome as an active city that was portable through time. Certeau's gaze is on the cities and its representations while Favro looks at the parade as a cultural gaze; urban agriculture as an active city.          

           To help unpack Favro's study of ancient Rome's concrete structures, we watched in class a Vimeo video that gave us a tour of ancient Rome in 320 CE. Through the three-dimensional model of the ancient city in 320 CE, the viewer can look at the city through the lens of Favro or Certeau. Given the mere fact that digital projects create a more sensory experience, the class was able to view Rome in its entirety of what it would've looked like during that time period. The video shows the Basilica of Maxentius (exterior) and Basilica of Maxentius (interior) of buildings. At minute 3:09, a statue of Bascilica of Maxentius (interior, Statue of Constantine) is shown. If Favro were to look at this statue, she would say that "furthermore, ambitious nontriumphators likewise sought permission to erect public buildings advertising their own successes" (Favro 159). When viewing this as a rhetorical discourse, many questions arise such as: Who would've seen the methods of the Roman architecture? What does the statue mean? Does the positioning of the structure hold any significance? A term that helps answer all of these questions is dialectical materialism. This method of logical argumentation attempts to address conflicting ideas. The main argumentum point that Favro is getting across in regards to the city is that the structural setting held power. "No matter how far Roman authority extended, the city on the Tiber remained the focal point of power" (Favro 152).

           Certeau looks at the city of Manhattan to decipher the city-inhabitant relationship. Rather than focusing on the concrete structure of Manhattan, Certeau looks at the land mass as an experience of Western culture. Instead of looking at Manhattan as a mere discourse, Certeau looks at the agency within the city. "He argues, for example, that workers necessarily seize agency over certain aspects of work environment and time in order to verify their solidarity with co-workers and family" (Certeau 1342). Certeau would look at Favro's historiography examination of Rome as somewhat unethical. "Certeau emphasizes that every writer who describes history and culture is necessarily caught up in the myths and power relations described, and that all historiography should take the writer's subject position into account" (Certeau 1342). For Certeau, one cannot just look at the structure from above and know everything about the culture and people. For Certeau one must be involved within the architecture and enthrall in the city's urbanistic discourse.

       Certeau's operational concept of the 'city' and Favro's Roman triumph both illustrate fundamental critiques of  two societies. For purposes of distinguishing the two texts I think it is key to breakdown one of the three concepts each rhetorician talks about and correlate it to one another. Both Certeau and Favro point out three primary purposes for the importance of the cities. The third point that each rhetorician talks about correlate to one another. Certeau states, "the city, like a proper name, thus provides a way of conceiving and constructing space on the basis of a finite number of stable, isotable, and interconnected properties" (Certeau 1345). Favro states her third claim as, "the third purpose of the triumphal ceremony was to appease and honor the gods-in particular, Jupiter, guarantor of the Roman state" (Favro 155). Both rhetoricians state that the structures and properties hold significance in society but the discourse and agency within the texts differentiates substantially. 

-Anjelica MacGregor-