When Cities Fall: Cultural Reflections of Loss and Lament

The fall of a city is not just an incisive event with often catastrophic, long-term, and wide-ranging consequences, but also a moment that captivates the imagination, elicits intense cultural reflections, and is used to draw a dividing line in historical narratives. Since Antiquity the fall of cities has been used to mark historical thresholds, which in some instances originated sprawling mythological, historiographical, and literary traditions, such as those centred on the falls of Troy, Jerusalem or Rome. In pre-modern thinking the framing of the fall of cities in various media plays a crucial role: the stories of their (repeated) falls underpin discourses essential for the negotiation of collective trauma, the attenuation of experiences of loss and disorientation, and the generation of political authority and cultural identity.

In May 2023 "When Cities Fall" conference brought together an international group of interdisciplinary researchers working on all aspects of city-fall-narratives in general and city laments in particular. The contributions of this conference are now collated and presented in this volume. They range from Classical Greek political oratory, over Anglo-Saxon poetry, to Pinochet-era Chilean literature.