About

Soon after moving to Paris in 2010 as a  Masters student, I began to blog about my new ‘home’.  I would be in Paris for a minimum of two years. So, I started posting random thoughts and experiences into the ether on ‘anonsparis.blogspot.com’.

The blog would be a way to share what I was seeing with family and friends. In truth, I knew I was blogging into the void but would take joy in satisfying the urge to write, even if no one ever read the blog.

The choice to write as ‘Anon’ underscores this intended anonymity. I wanted to blog anonymously, as one of the millions of people living in – and through – the city of lights.

After two years, I started working toward a PhD and began living between Paris and London. I also took on a PhD thesis that fed my  growing appetite to explore and live in  both cities.

In my  professional (and named) blogging and academic study , I research and blog about – in very broad terms –  the ‘Americanisation’ of urban politics and urban spaces in Paris and London.

‘Anon’s Paris’ became more and more about exploring Paris (and its history) and to a lesser degree, London too.

Somewhere along this grad student journey,  I became interested in the senses and how they shape our experience of cities.   So, this blog increasingly takes an interest in how the senses shape experience of the cities and how they have shaped people’s experiences of  Paris and London in the past.

So, along with scattered and random postings about Paris and London, this blog has a special interest in exploring the relationship between these cities and the senses. Call it a ‘sense and the city’ blog (I suspect this phrase may attract some eye rolling).

The rate of posting  here is, alas, quite ‘punctuated’ – filled with loads of parentheses but I post as much as life allows.

Thank you for visiting, and  please do come back soon.

I hope that you enjoy a slice of Paris – and London – from the perspective of a grad student living between these two great cities!

Bienvenue! Welcome…