Welcome! This site is for public scholarly discussion of urban
communities and culture, semiotics, and visual sociology. Our photo
archive contains collections from urban neighborhoods in many global
cities. Check out the albums for Little Italies, Chinatowns, and
neighborhoods in global cities by following the links in the right
margin. We are adding new photographs regularly. If you have a
collection of photos from a city not in the gallery and would like to
contribute, please contact us. We have a collection of learning
modules available also. If you teach sociology, take a look to see
what we offer. If you have additional materials you would like to
share, please contact us. We also maintain an archive of scholarly
works on urban communities, urban semiotics, and visual sociology. In
the right margin, you will also see links to some of our special
exhibits. For help, please consult "About This Site" — follow the
links in the left margin. Questions? Email us at . What's New? * T.
Shortell. 2009. Brooklyn and Belleville: a Case Study of the Visual
Semiotics of Ethnic Identity in Two Diverse Urban Neighborhoods. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the International Visual Sociology
Association, Carlisle, Cumbria, UK. * T. Shortell and J. Krase.
2009.Spatial Semiotics of Difference in Urban Vernacular
Neighborhoods. Paper presented at the 9th European Sociological
Association Conference, Lisbon, Portugal. * J. Krase and T. Shortell.
2009. Visualizing Glocalization: Semiotics of Ethnic and Class
Differences in Global Cities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of
the Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore, MD. * J. Krase and T.
Shortell. 2008. Visualizing Glocalization: Changing Images of Ethnic
Vernacular Neighborhoods in Global Cities. Paper presented at the
First ISA Forum of Sociology, Barcelona, Spain. * J. Krase and T.
Shortell. 2007. Imagining Chinatowns and Little Italies: a Visual
Approach to Ethnic Spectacles. Paper presented at Le Beau Dans La
Ville: Colloque International. Tours, France.
