Aaron Betsky moderates a discussion about the connection between text, textural aspects of urban life, and memory within an urban context. The panel includes, Ann Bergren, Professor of Classics at UCLA and SCI-Arc instructor, Anthony Vidler, Professor of Architecture at Princeton, Kurt Forster, Director of the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, and Emily Apter, Professor of Romance Languages at Williams College. Betsky asks, “can the postmodern city be read,” and what is the relation of architecture to the city. He explains the lecture is part of course at SCI-Arc called, Architecture, Theatricality, and Monumentality in the Age of Revolutions – Paris Berlin 1780-1820. Each speaker gives a brief talk offering a perspective on memory and identity which are mainly literary, text-based. Among the texts, stories and writers quoted, alluded to and discussed are; the Greek muses, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Walter Benjamin.