The second volume of Kolkata in Space, Time and Imagination continues with the theme of the ordinary and the everyday, with special attention paid to the underclasses of the city, focusing on certain labouring sectors (including feminized ones) that have always been marginalized in the city’s history and yet do assert their ‘right to the city’ even in this age of neoliberal economics that seems to be rapidly turning the city into a utopia for the middle-class.

This volume, moreover, deals with the efflorescence of creative imagination in the city’s culturescape, focusing on certain literary and artistic genres. It also shows how, in a sense, the city itself is an imagined existence, albeit a pluralistic one, and how perceptions of the city’s past and the conservation of its heritage are also largely determined by imagination. Just as the first volume highlights the politics of space and time, the present one makes a nuanced study of the politics of culture in the city.