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EAUH Conference 2006
Session abstracts/Main Sessions
1. So close, yet so far away: European and colonial urban transactions,
1415-1776
Period: Early Modern
In 1415 the Portuguese initiated the European expansion overseas with
the conquest of Ceuta (North of Africa). In 1776, the United States of
America was the first European colony to gain independence from her European
rulers. This session wishes to bring to light how the European urbanisation
process between 1415 and 1776 influenced the foundation, development and
growth of colonial cities in the territories dominated by the Europeans
in America, Africa and Asia (transference of European urban models overseas).
The session will also take into account the colonial influences on the
way cities were built and decorated in Europe during that period. The
chairpersons will be especially looking for specialists on the urban relationship
between Europe and its colonies and the urban colonial influence in Europe.
Hopefully, by accepting papers with a strong comparative and interdisciplinary
component, the chairpersons will gather a broad range of social scientists
from different countries and scientific backgrounds in the expectation
that new models or new leads for further research in this field may bring
Europe and the rest of the world closer together.
2. Animals in the city: historical and theoretical insights
Period: Modern
Scope:
* Working animals, e.g. horses;
* Live animals as part of the food economy: cows, pigs, small livestock;
* Slaughtering and other animal-related industries;
* Live cattle and dead meat markets;
* Animal products;
* Companion animals;
* Zoos;
* 'Wild' animals;
* Vermin;
* Human interest: vets, butchers, stock-keepers, medical/sanitary officers,
etc.;
* Theoretical papers, e.g. recent non-human turn;
* Comparative papers welcome: through time or across space.
3. Material culture and the city: Continuity and change in consumption
and social life in European cities, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth
century
Period: Medieval/Early modern
Over the last two decades a growing body of research has focused on consumer
history in general and material culture in particular. The burgeoning
interest in consumer history has given birth to numerous probate inventory
based studies and has also enhanced our understanding of the retail world
of past urban societies. Yet, so far, surprisingly little comparative
research has been done. This can be ascribed, partly to the variety and
inconsistency of sources available (each with their own particular drawbacks);
partly to the specificity of methodological strategies employed, and partly
to the variety of sub-themes and approaches that can be used in tackling
this vast study object. In this session we intend to highlight one important
sub theme of consumer history: the influence that continuities and changes
in consumption and consumer behaviour had on urban social life.
Firstly, scholars will be invited to reflect upon the complex and variegated
world of goods in the urban context. In particular, we invite contributions
that focus on the diverse processes of acquiring and disposing of material
objects (principally shopping, but also gift cultures, inheritance strategies
and patterns, secondary markets, and recycling), and/or on the monetary,
exchange and use value of material culture (including the role of gifting
and inheritance in cementing social relations). To what extent were there
continuities in such practices across space and time: can we, for example,
see the emergence of a pan-European mode of shopping? How did changes
in the ways in which goods were circulated relate to wider transformations
in urban society?
Secondly, and building on this, contributors are also asked to reflect
upon the societal consequences of changes in material culture and consumption
practices in the period prior to the advent of the department store. We
invite papers that consider broad themes such as: the impact of Renaissance
and Enlightenment ideals on the everyday practices of consumption. The
extent to which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century consumer practices
were driven by conspicuous consumption, and how they related to the advent
of large-scale middle-class consumption. The emergence of shopping as
a shared leisure activity, especially for women, and the ways in which
this linked to both new patterns of sociability and the gendered use of
space and time. The contribution made by consumer practices to the blurring
of social boundaries and hence to the birth of a more egalitarian society.
We also seek contributions that focus on the social impact of key individuals
or particular material goods. For example: what role did urban middlemen,
such as shopkeepers, play in (re)shaping social networks through credit
facilities? How did changing market, auction and shopping practices influence
social life in the city? How did the introduction of hot drinks influence
urban sociability patterns and inform the genesis of public and private
distinctions? What influence did the spread of watches exert upon the
use of time in the urban context?
Whilst the scope of potential questions is almost unlimited, the focus
of the session will remain firmly on the social aspects of material
culture and consumption. Both case studies and general thematic papers
will be welcomed. Preference will be given to contributions that allow
comparisons through time and/or space, and to presentations that offer
scope for generalisation and theoretical reflection.
4. Grands chantiers de la rénovation urbaine: Les expériences
italiennes dans leur contexte européen (XIVe-XVIIe siècles)
Period: Medieval, Early modern
Entre la fin du Moyen Âge et le début de l’époque
moderne, beaucoup de villes européennes se donnent les moyens politiques,
financiers et intellectuels pour engager de vastes programmes de rénovation
urbaine : ciblant en priorité le système des places centrales
ou les grands axes du réseau viaire, ces opérations n’en
négligent pas pour autant les zones périphériques
d’urbanisation plus récente. Elles en projettent la réorganisation
à partir de nouveaux critères du decorum urbain,
qui valent pour les grandes capitales comme pour les petits centres fondés
ex novo, pour les projets de cité idéale comme
pour les opérations de reconstruction suite à un incendie
ou un tremblement de terre.
Il existe deux voies d’approche pour rendre compte de ces opérations
de rénovation urbaine : la première s’attache à
la morphologie urbaine et tente de reconstituer les nouveaux modèles
d’organisation spatiale dans leur dimension formelle, sur le plan
édilitaire sinon architectural. La seconde concentre son attention
sur les acteurs de la transformation urbaine, sur leurs pratiques et leurs
stratégies d’accords, d’arrangement ou de négociations
— que ce soit avec les autorités municipales ou souveraines,
l’encadrement technique de la maestranza ou les propriétaires
privés. Reconstituer le jeu de ces pratiques dans un contexte institutionnel,
économique et juridique donné revient à chercher
la traduction spatiale des nouveaux rapports sociaux qui façonnent
la cité moderne ben regolate.
Sans négliger l’intérêt de la perspective
formelle, c’est à la seconde voie d’approche envisagée,
plus attentive à l’histoire sociale, que l’on espère
pouvoir consacrer les travaux de cette session. On envisagera donc les
« grands chantiers » — au sens où ils ne se circonscrivent
pas à un seul édifice mais concernent tout ou partie d’une
zone urbaine — comme des lieux d’expérimentation de
pratiques et de procédures édilitaires mais aussi comme
des lieux de rencontres, plus ou moins conflictuelles, entre les différents
intérêts qui président à la fondation ou à
la rénovation urbaines. Quelles sont les modalités concrètes
de projection et de mise en œuvre de ces chantiers de la rénovation
et dans quelle mesure mobilisent-ils des professionnels de la gestion
urbaine ? Quelles sont leurs structures de financement et comment s’articulent
mécanismes spéculatifs et jeu fiscal, type d’investissements
et dynamiques d’endettement ? Peut-on mesurer l’efficacité
du cadre normatif et institutionnel et son incidence directe sur le processus
édilitaire (définition du périmètre de compétences
des magistratures urbaines, réglementation de la propriété
foncière, droit d’expropriation, normes et législations
concernant les matériaux de construction ou l’usage du sol
public…) ? Mais aussi, comment se présentent concrètement
ces entreprises de (re)fondations urbaines ? S’agit-il réellement
de constructions ou se contente-t-on le plus souvent d’opérations
de lotissement, laissant l’urbanisation à la charge de l’initiative
privée ?
Autant de questions qui méritent d’être abordées
de manière globale, en combinant les différentes approches
de l’urbain, dont les cloisonnements disciplinaires ne favorisent
pas toujours le dialogue — en particulier entre les historiens de
l’architecture, spécialistes de la forme urbaine et les historiens
de la société. Ces questions peuvent s’articuler autour
de quelques nœuds problématiques, qui concernent respectivement
le cadrage chronologique, géographique et thématique de
la session :
• À la fin du Moyen Âge, l’organisation de grands
chantiers de fondation et de refondation urbaines ne constitue en rien
une nouveauté, et peut même bénéficier d’une
ancienne tradition — que l’on songe par exemple aux borghi
nuovi ou aux terre nuove dans l’espace italien, pour
ne rien dire des opérations d’élargissement de l’enceinte
ou de la réorganisation de certains quartiers autour des implantations
mendiantes. Dans quelle mesure les expériences de la première
modernité héritent-elles de cette tradition médiévale
et en quoi s’en distinguent-elles, du point de vue de l’ampleur
et de la capacité de programmation ?
• Il semble bien que la plupart des opérations de requalification
urbaine de la fin du Moyen Âge ait lieu en Italie (de la Florence
d’Arnolfo di Cambio à la Ferrare de Biagio Rossetti, en passant
par Milan, Mantoue, Urbino et Venise…) ; mais d’autre part,
il ne fait guère de doute non plus que dans les siècles
suivants, les principaux épisodes de la rénovation urbaine
aient lieu dans les grandes capitales européennes, de l’Anvers
des Schoonbeke à Paris sous Henri IV. Existe-t-il un lien direct
entre ces deux « saisons » des grands chantiers de la rénovation
urbaine ? Et si oui, sur quel plan : du strict point de vue formel ou
de la méthode de projection et de mise en œuvre ?
• Certains grands chantiers édilitaires (et l’on pense
en tout premier lieu à saint Pierre de Rome) assument incontestablement,
au début de l’âge moderne, un rôle comparable
à ceux de la construction des grandes cathédrales européennes
depuis le XIIIe siècle : celui de constituer un laboratoire d’expériences
non seulement pour de nouvelles techniques de construction, mais aussi
pour des modalités inédites d’organisation ou de financement
du chantier, ou de mise en œuvre combinée de nouvelles compétences
techniques et « professionnelles ». Ces expériences
constituent non seulement des préalables, mais des modèles
et des références pour des opérations de plus grande
ampleur. Pourtant, le changement d’échelle (d’un édifice
isolé à un quartier, et du quartier à la ville toute
entière) introduit des variables qui modifient non seulement quantitativement,
mais aussi qualitativement, le rôle des intervenants et les modalités
de leurs pratiques. Aussi doit-on s’interroger sur le rapport qui
existe — du point de vue des techniques, de la circulation de la
maestranza, etc.) entre ces expériences édilitaires
et les grands chantiers destinés à fonder une ville, la
refonder ou requalifier des portions de l’espace urbain.
5. Urban Space, Violence and Crime in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Centuries:
Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives
Period: Modern
Cities have a strong record for breeding violence and disobedience to
the law. While this is a very old story, it took a new turn during the
nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries: in both centuries city planning was
greatly shaped by the notion that violence and crime could be fostered
by the spatial lay-out of a city, especially by narrow spaces and high
density both of buildings and population. In consequence, many cities
were re-built and turned into new cities, designed to keep political unrest,
moral decay, and crime at bay.
During the nineteenth century and also in the early twentieth-century
middle class moral panic focused mostly on densely populated working-class
districts in the inner cities. As a rule, in redeveloping these districts
politicians opted for open spaces and the resettlement of great parts
of the city’s population. Ironically, this movement for urban reform
created in the longer run new hotbeds of crime and violence: new housing
estates built during the 1960s and 1970s, that can be regarded as the
movement’s apogee, turned quickly into areas where social problems
accumulated and rates of delinquencies soared although these estates had
nothing at all in common with the inner city districts that were traditionally
perceived to be at the core of the problem of urban crime. During the
last decades of the twentieth-century, yet another aspect to this story
came to the fore: at the one hand gated communities were built which promise
to spare its inhabitants the experience of violence and crime by social
cohesion and close surveillance, on the other hand the policy of ‘zero
tolerance’, inspired by the ‘broken windows theory’
and devised in New York City but eventually highly influential in many
Western cities, was praised both by politicians and the media for reclaiming
urban space that seemed to had been surrendered to criminals. At the same
time, the development of mega-cities in developing countries for example
in South America created yet another close link between urban space and
violence: in many of these cities various districts, invariably populated
by members of a dispossessed underclass, seem to be ruled by organised
crime or by violent youth gangs. These neighbourhoods can be regarded
as counterparts to the gated communities created for affluent families
since they are both ‘no go areas’ for specific parts of the
population, cutting off access to what used to be public space.
We propose to discuss the multitudinous aspects to the close relationship
between urban space, violence and crime in a main session at the Eight
International Conference on Urban History in Stockholm. Given the vast
range of scholarly discussions in many disciplines on violence, delinquency,
the urban underclass, and urban ethnography, we expect great interest
in such a session. Contributions could be made not only by historians
but also by scholars active in Sociology, Ethnography, Criminology, Architecture,
and Social Geography. ‘Violence’ and ‘Crime’ should
be understood in a broad sense, ranging from minor delinquencies and acts
of physical violence to collective forms of violent protest and disobedience
such as foot riots, labour unrest, or protest marches and revolutionary
uprisings. Contributors should be aware that urban space is not only shaped
by buildings, roads, and other tactile objects but also by perceptions
of various actors such as representatives of public authorities, local
inhabitants, non-locals, women and men, people of different ethnic origin
and from different social strata. Urban space was (and is) therefore never
a given fact but always a contested notion, open for negotiation and change.
Most of all we would be interested in papers that discuss how urban
space and patterns of violence/crime were influenced and changed by city
planning and the redevelopment of districts, regarding urban environment
and architecture as forms of social control. Also of great interest would
be papers that reconstruct how the spatial lay-out of a city and the access
to urban spaces influenced collective actions (their causes, internal
logic, and their success) and, in return, also perceptions of the city
and the ideas of urban reform movements. Other possible topics are inter
alia: problems of law enforcement and state/governmental rule in inner-city
areas, the mental maps of city inhabitants in relation to spatial patterns
of violence, mass media representations of violent and crime ridden cities,
and conflicts about social segregation inside the city (ghettos and gated
communities).
6. Frontiers and Identities Within Cities: Intercultural Communication,
Jurisdictions, and the Management of Urban Space from the Middle Ages
to Modernity
Period: All periods
Territories are not just about geographical or physical space. They
extend to cultural, imaginary, gendered, fiscal, administrative, legal,
and property boundaries, demarcated between private and public interests.
Conveniently, these boundaries sometimes overlap precisely but more often
there are many layers of inexact and conflicting jurisdictions which forge
alliances between interests, or generate tensions.
We propose in this session to approach urban societies, as clusters
of identities (often spatial) defined by religion, social status, language
and cultural background creating numerous fictitious, imaginary or metaphorical
boundaries. Not all of them were formal, or well-defined, as with spheres
of influence where ethnic, racial, youth cultures, and identities are
exclusive. Recently 'Gangs of New York' constructed imagined and real
urban boundaries that shaped the social topography of the city. This resembles
Capulets and Montagues in Romeo and Juliet, or the 'Jets' and 'Sharks
from 'West Wide Story'.
At a theoretical level, urban polities were melting pots in which cultural,
confessional and national diversities were mixed and homogenisation took
place. In practice, however, such cohesion and unity proved unachievable
and towns and cities were confronted with ongoing diversity – in
religious, linguistic, political, cultural and ethnic forms. Amongst the
consequences were a process of fragmentation and the rise of various frontiers
within towns and cities. Thus inner frontiers
developed through administrative procedures and local customs.
Participants are invited to submit a 1 page proposal identifying the
nature of the inner frontiers – whether real or imagined, cultural
or political, administrative or legal, or indeed other boundaries demarcating
the town or city. A comparative approach in space, place or straddling
longer historical periods from medieval to modern is particularly welcome.
Proposals from doctoral and post-doctoral candidates are welcome. Some
suggested topics include:
• Under what circumstances do urban societies CREATE new or ERODE
existing boundaries?
• How is urban space managed when there are fragmented jurisdictions
and overlapping administrative authorities?
• How do European towns and cities differ in their administrative
and regulatory codes, and what difference did this make to the management
of urban space?
• Are city-states less affected by issues relating to boundaries
and jurisdictions?
• Does size matter? Do smaller places experience fewer boundary
conflicts?
• What is the relationship between the law and urban development?
• What theoretical models, if any, assist our understanding of such
conflicts?
• Was the sense of collective identity (or the identity of city)
threatened with the emergence of frontiers within urban societies?
• Was the identity of city in interaction with the identity of citizens
and with the identification of inhabitants with the community?
• Was the city, still able to act as a legal and political entity
as frontiers and boundaries emerged at a national level?
• What strategies were applied by cities to support the sense of
collective identity? Did the sense of collective identity change through
the ages?
7. Historical Information Systems and the WWW in Urban History (16th
to 20th centuries)
Period: Early modern/Modern
The section is supposed to join scholars of urban history to discuss
the use of modern multi-media based technologies in international comparison.
Particularly welcome are contributions presenting research results in
urban history in the WWW or such projects, which combine research in urban
history with historical information systems. The section will accept proposals
for papers on early modern and modern history (16th to 20th centuries).
One geographical and historical focus will be put on the Baltic Sea area.
Altogether, the section is supposed to promote the international discussion
about the possibilities, chances (and limits) of using modern technologies
for the research in urban history.
8. Urban environmental history
Periods: all periods
Towns are artificial environments. They are built up areas constructed
to keep “wild” nature at safe distance. The urban landscape
is by purpose designed to meet the needs of men, and men often fear the
unpredictable and sometimes chaotic pressure from nature. Nature, however,
have a way to break down the barriers of civilisation if it gets enough
time. Nature also strikes back in sudden blows, and thus instantly illustrates
the fragility of urban life. Thus, urban civilisation is involved in a
constant struggle for its survival. Mega quantities of energy is needed
to keep the city going, and uninterrupted flows of materials and man power
is required to maintain the urban life style and to push back nature.
Vast surpluses of waste are produced. Even climate is affected by urban
growth.
The theme suggested will focus on the environmental history of towns
and cities. Case studies from individual sites can deepen our understanding
of the intricate relationships between nature and culture in urban environments.
Macro studies can offer insights into the environmental effects of large-scale
urbanisation processes. Since city life today, at an accelerating pace,
is becoming a dominant global way of life its environmental effects are
becoming global as well. It must be considered a first rank task to grasp
the current environmental influences of the European urban systems and
cities. How are the cities affecting the environment today? How have they
affected environments in history? What are the threats for future generations,
and how do we cope with them? The theme is meant to cover older history
as well as modern, with intra-European as well as intra-global comparative
perspectives.
9. Between cousins and kings: civil society or something else in European
Cities east and west
Period: Early modern/Modern
The idea of 'civil society' has gained a central place in political,
social and cultural debate since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Civil Society
has been identified with the freedoms of the self directed decision taker
in areas of activity that lie between family and the state [between the
tyranny of kings and the tyranny of cousins]. Civil Society has been identified
with voluntary associations, with the rule of law, with the market economy,
with pluralism and democracy.
Historical investigation has been limited and partial. What we have
suggests that the origins of civil society were located in towns and in
the relationship of town and country. The literature suggests that certain
urban societies, notably those in Western Europe and North America were
more suited to the development of a stable pluralist civil society than
others. We wish to test the value of such ideas against a wide variety
of urban historical experience. We wish to review the nature of civil
society or its equivalent not only in the urban places of the nation states
of Western Europe but also in the great land empires of Eastern Europe
and beyond.
We will examine the historical dimensions of the literature and pose
a number of questions for the urban historian.
- Were stable civil societies only located in Western Europe and North
America?
- Were civil society 'models' imported from Western Europe to other
societies? If so, when did it work, when not? Can we trace the existence
of older organisations in which modern civil society can be rooted, or
in the lack of which fails to find roots? What can we learn of European
urban history in this field? What were the different historical paths
of these processes? How did the transition operate? Was there a link between
the agencies and institutions of the old regime and newer voluntary associations?
- Where did the hierarchical pluralism of Ottoman, Habsburg and Czarist
empires fit into the story? What organization, if any did they provide
between the state and the family?
-Where communal or religious belongings and organisations a path towards
the constitution of a civil society or an obstacle?
-What was the role of civil society in imperial governance (especially
in the Balkans and Russia) or in the development of national ideas?
- How did the voluntary association, the rule of law and the market economy
interact to produce, or fail to produce tolerance, pluralist and 'democratic'
organization?
10. Changing political representation in changing urban space: Central
and Eastern European cities from the late 19th century to the inter-war
years
Period: Modern
The aim of this session would be to investigate in a comparative manner
how political ideas were represented and expressed in urban space during
a period of rapid and violent change. The fields to be analyzed would
include architecture, urban planning, monuments and public manifestations
such as political demonstrations, inaugurations, coronations, official
visits and political funerals. Throughout Europe from the late 19th century
until well into the inter-war years cities were contested areas in which
better or lesser established social classes and political groupings strove
to set their marks in, or quite simply take over, public space. At the
same time, determined to strengthen its own power base in a world that
was subject to increasingly intense social and political confrontation,
state power sought to homogenize the ideological landscape represented
in major urban centres. A panel focusing on Central and Eastern Europe
will have to address the question in what way this region fits into the
overall scheme and what constitutes its peculiarities. The characteristic
multiethnic composition of so many cities in the region and the radical
change of regimes during and after the ‘Great War” are just
two aspects, which would have to be considered.
This proposal has been prepared by a group of scholars from Austria,
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
11. Architecture and urban space as vehicles for the creation of cosmopolitan
cities in the Mediterranean basin: 1450-1920
Period: All periods
The proposal is the outcome of an ongoing research programme financed
by the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR –FIRB programme 2004-6),
which involves different Italian universities and research institutions
and which has planned to organise a workshop in Rome on June 2005 on “Foreign
Communities and Topographic Identities”. Our aim for a main session
proposal is to broaden the comparative perspective of our research programme
to other European e non countries of the Mediterranean area, as well as
to make known the results of our work.
Intense cultural exchanges as well as exchanges of goods and ideas are
among the principal characteristics of a cosmopolitan city. The idea of
cosmopolitism as revealed in the study of the physical spaces (fondaci,
khans, foreigners’ districts, etc) were exchanges (cultural, political,
commercial) took place between foreigners and local population, is the
major issue of this proposal. The transfer of building models or of architects
or qualified laymen, as well as the presence of different foreigners’
districts equipped with churches, schools or hospitals are in this sense
elements (urban, physical traces) describing the constitution of a cosmopolitan
urban fabric. More specifically in the Mediterranean area intense cultural
exchanges and the presence of many multiethnic cities seem to have promoted
peculiar urban and architectural typologies, worthwhile investigating,
and a quite diffused cosmopolitan character. The case studies which our
research group has undertaken (and whose results will be presented on
this occasion) regarding the extraordinary transformation of Malta, Leghorn
or Sarajevo in the 16th and 17th century or the cosmopolitan urban context
of Fiume (Rijeka) or Rhodes in the 19th and early 20th century, are bringing
evidence to our argument.
12. Confronting Modernity: Religions and the Big City
Period: Early Modern/Modern
In the course of modernization and urbanization in the 19th century,
religious groups have often been described as "victims" of socio-economical
and cultural processes, which changed the shape of Europe's traditional
societies. The emergence of industrial centers, mass migration from rural
regions into the growing cities, and the dissolution of pre-modern forms
of social organisation have been interpreted as harbingers of a general
secularisation. Religious traditions and values seem to have "lost"
in the confrontation with modernity.
This is obviously too clear-cut a picture, and the proposed session would
like to encourage research and presentations which could help to get a
more detailed and complex view of this confrontation. The proposal tries
to bridge a gap between the traditional fields of research in Urban History
and other fields of interest and to introduce inter-disciplinary approaches
by integrating topics and research methods from Religious Studies, including
the growing field of Jewish Studies - which, at the same time, would profit
substantially from a closer co-operation with studies in urban history.
Moreover comparing the developments of religious groups in different European
cities might further help to get a more complex understanding of religion
in the wake of urbanization.
The interaction of urbanization and religion can be studied on many different
levels. An example from the field of Jewish Studies can illustrate our
point of access: When after 1815 Prussian reformers in formerly Polish
territories (Bromberg/Bydgoszcz) started to break down town walls - a
visible sign of modernisation - they unwittingly destroyed the eruvim,
the Sabbat borders of the orthodox Jewish communities. The following dispute
about the re-erection of the traditional "borders" gives insight
into the different space-related practices of religious communities and
into the changes of mentality Gottfried Korff has described as "internal
urbanization". How did urban planning and policy-making affect religious
groups in the cities, and what were their reactions? How did religious
practices and traditions influence the use of (urban) space? Examples
for the close relationship between religious affiliation and urban space
can be found with regard to Protestant or Catholic groups. 19Th-century-migrants
to the cities or new industrial centers often established themselves in
streets or areas where people from the same region or country and thus
with the same religious faith were living. As a result of migration, different
traditions within the same religious denomination came into contact (Polish
and “German” Catholics in the Ruhr area, West and East European
Jews). Did they use the same places? Did they quarrel about the form of
their religious practices in public? Studies concerning these questions
as well as papers with comparative approach to the relationship of settlement
and religion would be most welcome.
Secondly, whereas religious traditions and institutions in general seem
to be endangered in the course of urbanization, a kind of religious revival
in- and outside the churches and established religious groups was an apparently
concomitant phenomenon. Charismatic figures like the German-American Friedrich
von Schlümbach in the 1880s or Billy Sunday, one of the first American
radio preachers of the 1920s, mobilised thousands during their sermons
in the big cities. Processions and pilgrimages gained increasing importance
at about 1900. At the same time, new religious groups like the Salvation
Army, the Pentecostalism and other forms of religious “excitement”
emerged in various European countries as well as in the United States
and were deeply rooted in the urban centers. Often, these phenomena were
interpreted as an expression of backwardness directed against “modern”
urban life. But were these phenomena in themselves not part of the “modern”
urban life, using forms of communication specific to the urban culture?
Did they not help to accept or at least to bear the challenges of urbanization?
Apparently, more empirical research will be needed to help us understand
the wide range of different cultural and mental reactions toward urbanization.
A third field of study can be found in the work of religious agencies
in the big cities which covered a wide range of activities directed toward
the "classes dangereuses" in the urban centres. Among these
were city and night missions, settlement houses like Toynbee Hall in London
and travellers' aid societies to name but a few. These activities have
been analysed in the framework of ideological strategies as forms of social
discipline, but this interpretation follows an obviously one-sided and
narrow notion. Too little research has been done in order to get a clearer
picture of the practices, the inner organisation and function of this
kind of urban welfare work.
13. Shapes of selling: the topographical expression of marketing in
small European towns in a comparative perspective
Period: All periods
At this stage circa 400 towns have been published in the framework of
the Historic Towns Atlas project, which was initiated in 1956 by the International
Commission for the History of Towns. The time has come to use the growing
body of information on individual towns contained in the international
atlas project in a concerted effort to promote comparative work.
We are looking for offers of lectures of 30 minutes' duration (about 3,750
words). Since a publication of the lectures in this session is envisaged
at a later stage, we suggest that contributors should also provide us
with a more substantial written text of approximately 8,000 words. We
would like contributors to consider the following points:
1.Marketing occurred in small European towns in designated market places,
as often on the Continent, in particular streets, as often in Britain
and Ireland, as well as in unofficial spaces such as cemeteries and in
purpose-designed buildings such as market-halls. Can we come up with explanations
for these differences?
2.The relationship of market-places/market-streets to other inner urban
functions, such as the church or the defences, is revealing.
3.Markets in suburbs are of importance for some towns.
4.The proposal includes small European towns for all time-periods.
5.Market-spaces take on many different morphological shapes, which deserve
a full explanation.
6. The comparative approach can be applied either to a number of towns
within a national project or to a comparative treatment of towns from
different national atlases.
14. Representing urbanity. Urban history and ideas about heritage and
museums: recent results and plans for the future
Period: Modern
As part of a general trend wherein the urban past attracts the interest
of scholars, urban governments and the general public, city museums have
experienced increasing success. In Belgium several new initiatives are
under way in both three of the larger cities and in several smaller towns;
elsewhere existing city museums are being rethought and reconceptualized.
This new popularity of the urban past is related to a growing interest
in questions about urban heritage. Traditional ideas about the architectural
value of urban buildings and townscapes are being complemented with a
new awareness of the importance of urban customs, traditions and identity.
At the same time historians revise and rewrite urban history from new
perspectives. Monographs on the history of particular towns are being
published at a remarkable rate in the Netherlands; London gets its new
history, etc. The new historiographic perspectives include social networks
and social capital, everyday life and popular culture, neighbourhood communities
and the public space, urban identities and material culture and so on.
No doubt this upsurge in the interest for the urban past and urbanity
runs parallel with a growing unease with an ever more globalised world,
provoking above all questions about processes of identification with a
local ‘sphere’. The expectations about multifaceted presentations
representing urban diversity influence the stories, in particular in the
case of temporary projects. Information and communication technology (ICT)
promise possibilities of multilayered storytelling and combining several
perspectives.
These trends pose new challenges to urban historians and heritage workers
alike. Historians are confronted with new demands, new funding possibilities
and criteria, a new public and new media, which all urge for new solutions
and concepts. Museum directors and museologists are compelled to confront
new historical narratives and models. Up to now, both ‘sides’
are thought to be guided by different – even opposed – ideals:
history striving to some objective truth, heritage starting from current
concerns of the actors involved. They are, however, equal in their awareness
of the weight of the past in the present socio-economic, cultural and
political context they work in; and they both confront the question of
how to represent the past in a relevant manner.
This session, therefore, aims at looking at the way in which recent
trends in urban history are being absorbed into the new city museums and
how they interact with ways of thinking about urban heritage. It will
also deal with the ways in which urban history itself is affected by these
developments. Through various examples (for example new city museums,
new ideas in existing museums, interaction with organisations dealing
with heritage and popular culture, ideas about the protection and conservation
of townscapes), we want to assess how the academic world gets involved
in these initiatives. What impact has the dialogue between these different
actors on the representation of the urban past and of urban identity in
museological settings? And how is urban history as a discipline influenced
by the demands of a growing museum public and by the museological practices
they are met with?
15. The Socialist City – Concepts and Realities between Pragmatism
and Utopianism
Period: Modern
Socialism had various, often conflicting faces in the course of the
20th century and it spread its influence on a variety of scales: from
small isolated communities to huge “empires.” But for all
the diverse brands of socialism, modern city with its numerous social
problems was a natural point of interest. From utopian “ideal”
visions that strove to rebuild the whole world, to pragmatic attempts
to resolve the most pressing problems of a specific locale, socialist
cities demonstrated a wide spectrum of ambitions and concepts that can
only be summed up as pluralist.
In shaping the socialist urban milieu national (or even regional) cultural
specificities expressed themselves not only in architectural design and
city planning but also in the persistence of traditional behavior and
popular culture. In this regard, there were significant differences throughout
the geography of socialist cities reflecting their historical, social,
economic and even political differentiation. And there were also different
degrees of urbanization as well as of decision-making centralization.
In regard to their positioning into the long-term national history there
could be discerned socialist cities built “ex nihilo” (e.g.
Dimitrovgrad/Bulgaria) and socialist cities which first had to deal with
their pre-socialist heritage and sometimes to rearrange their medieval
or “capitalist” cityscape. Depending on the research perspective
the typology of socialist cities could be extremely branched and diversified.
Yet there are many similarities in socialist urban development, such as
state control on housing and residential allocation, ideological framing
of collective practices, spatial order and symbolic representation.
Disregarding geographical barriers, often too simply identified with
the Iron Curtain, the panel is intended to cover a wide range of cities.
Real or imaginary, they can be associated with socialist ideas not only
through governments that commissioned them and architects and planners
that designed them, but also through other creative minds, like writers,
film-makers, and painters who contemplated about them. Calling for a cross-cultural
and multidisciplinary approach, the panel will challenge the conventional
ideas about the socialist city and try to reconstruct the original pluralism
of visions. Therefore, it will stimulate a prolific discussion exceeding
the specificities of the particular case studies and explicating the general
processes and conceptions behind them, if any. In doing so it will bring
together the issue of the model type of a socialist city and the common
features of implemented socialist cities, on the one hand, and the issue
of the variations or deviations of that general conception, on the other
hand.
16. Local governance, power relationships and municipal politics: The
making of modern city in Europe 1945-2000
Period: Modern
The aim of this session is to give forum to a period in urban history,
which until recently has not get as much focus as it deserves, namely
studies on post 1945 urban and local development. During this period municipalities
have had a crucial role in dealing with many matters providing many statuary
services. Municipalities have been responsible for a considerable share
of matters relating to people’s everyday life. It is, therefore,
important to study on municipal policy and local governance.
Historians and political researches have taken an interest in the links
between the new and traditional elite, democracy, welfare and local administration.
The fulfilment of welfare goals has been studied in an upward direction,
i.e. how local policy-making created and developed certain goals of reform
set by the popular movements, particularly the labour and social democrat
movements. Some researches talk about "silent revolution", which refers
to the great reforms that were gradually carried out over a few post-war
decades. The process has also been called a social revolution, because
the nature of public administration changed from being conservative, hierarchical
and stiff machinery into being a provider of modern welfare services.
The post-war history of many European cities and municipalities is summed
up in the question of how municipal autonomy has adapted itself to the
pursuits of the goals of welfare state. The matter has both ideological
and political dimension. In this situation the change in power relationships
can be of vital importance. Ideologically, the issue is about the differences
between bourgeois and socialist policy. In practice, at the municipal
level, many majority decisions are made in spite of the ideological differences.
That indicates to the very special character of local politics. In this
respect, we think that our session could be a platform for researches
who deal with the use of power in various forms. Municipal policy, the
varying roles and the structure of political parties and the influence
of individual politicians as well as the development of national legislation
are crucial themes there.
Since 1945 the European municipal administration has seen many social
transition periods. Today, municipalities in many countries decide a significant
part of matters regarding people’s everyday life. These matters
concern land use, city planning and construction, housing and transport,
education and health care, culture and leisure. All these are central
aspects in modern urban life. In many cities civil servants and politician
form interesting power groups. If they success to join forces, results
can be achieved rapidly and efficiently. It is important to understand
the mechanism of this central urban relationship between expert power
and political power.
17. Cultural Encounters in Urban Space
Period:
Each society orders landscapes, buildings, and environments in distinctive
ways to suit its specific needs, categories, and priorities. But what
happens when that particular way of ordering and experiencing the world
gets disrupted with the arrival of new groups of people, ideas and/or
ideologies? This session focuses on how urban space mediates cultural
encounters that result from discoveries, conquests, colonialism, wars,
transnational migration and tourism. We are particularly interested in
contributions that explore the ways in which spatial forms and practices
are transmitted, resisted, negotiated and transformed as different cultures
come in contact and share the same space. Inspired by recent studies in
postcolonial studies and urban geography (W. Cronon, P. Carter, R. Kagan,
S. Greenblatt among others), we are using the term encounter to acknowledge
a multiplicity of urban experiences and the agency of multiple actors
even in the face of unequal power relations.
For this session we seek papers that examine the dynamics of cultural
exchange in urban space from the scale of entire cities down to the level
of individual buildings and the spaces between them. Rather than purely
conceptual explorations, however, we would like to invite papers, which
ground a strong theoretical framework in a critical examination of the
exchanges that occur at particular sites. While this vein of inquiry has
been used primarily for European contacts with natives in colonized lands,
we believe it is a valid approach for understanding various modes of encounter.
Thus the session is open to entries from all historical periods and geographical
locations. Among the range of issues that submissions might address are
the transformation of urban enclaves through the movement of people and
ideas; the emergence of new types of spaces or changes in existing places
as a result of encounters; the contested nature of shared urban space;
the role of physical space in the construction of new urban identities
and experiences.
18. Early Modern Cultural History of the Street
Period: Early modern
This session focuses on the early modern street as a forum for cultural
practices. The streets were spatial structures where people met each other
both during the day and the night-time and dealt with various common issues.
For example, questions of honour were often negotiated in street fights
and in exchanges of slander. The nature of the street as public space
was negotiated, among other things, in disputes about building and repairing
houses along the streets. Streets formed routes of navigation from home
to church to tavern, and they served as a stage for political and artistic
activities. The material form and structure of the streets affected all
cultural practices.
Combining the material with social and mental in the field of everyday
practices and experiences is one of the goals of this session. The session
welcomes all kinds of presentations dealing with the street life and the
meanings that it had for people's everyday lives in the early modern era.
Themes can include discussion over the nature of the space of the streets,
for example, were streets open areas or closed spatial structures in people's
everyday experience? Or, how is the street public or/and private? Alternatively
presentations can deal with particular cultural practices connected to
the streets. Also methodological papers on how to study the street as
a spatial structure are warmly welcomed.
19. Mourning urban change: testimonies of disaster and
urban catastrophe since 1945
Period: Modern
Natural disasters - fire, flood and famine, earthquake
and plague - have been a focus of many studies of individual towns and
cities. Often these studies have focused on the physical effects of destruction.
Dramatic events attract media hype. Vivid pictures are flashed around
the world. For an instant, the locality becomes the centre of attention,
nationally and even internationally. Yet disasters have an individual
and family dimension too. And once world media attention has subsided,
local populations are left to get on with the reconstruction of their
lives, as well as with the rebuilding of the urban fabric.
There are also other circumstances that radically influence
urban change. Wars usually result in urban catastrophe, there are also
cases of deliberate destruction of a city as when neighbourhoods are cleared,
central planning imposed or urban redevelopment implemented. These are
circumstances forced by human agents that could be considered along with
natural disasters as situations that provoke mourning.
This session explores how people mourn change, how they
adjust to dramatic new circumstances, how they get on with their lives
in the chaos resulting from dramatic events that transform the rhythms
and patterns of their lives.
Though concerned principally with oral history, testimonies
of mourning welcomed by this session also include written sources, such
as memoirs, diaries, literature, poetry, newspaper and media stories that
reveal how people 'mourn' the passing of an era, when their cognitive
worlds are disrupted, for whatever reason.
This session aims at comparing different European and world
cities that have passed through radical urban change in the period of
time elapsed since the Second World War. We welcome case studies addressing
one, or several, of the following issues:
* The concept of “mourning,” its origin as a
psychoanalytical concept (travail du deuil) and its use for urban
history (and the social sciences in general).
* Modernity and change – Is there something intrinsically
disruptive in the cultural phenomenon that we usually refer to as modernity?
Did modernity bring about significant new ways of coping with radical
change at societal level?
* Oral histories as alternative versions of urban change
to dominant discourse; interchange of personal experiences, media stories
and official history.
* Competing narratives - class, ethnic or gender construction
of narratives on urban change.
* Everyday life and processes of human adjustment on radical
urban change.
* Continuity and/or rupture, how people re-construct continuity
- old and new social and cultural practices.
* Collective memory - Building collective narratives around
disruptive events - new community identities and commemorations of urban
catastrophe.
We invite historians, anthropologists, sociologists, art
and literary historians, architects and others whose work might shed light
on the subject proposed.
20. Tower and Slab
Period: Modern
The modernist highrise development was the most successful
urban design scheme of the 20th century. To date, from the government
district of Brasilia to the Chicago housing projects and from the Paris
banlieue to the Blue Towns of Siberia millions of city dwellers call a
standardized, prefabricated concrete tower their home. Despite its success,
no urban form has roused comparable controversies. In the fifty years
since the completion of the first satellite cities, the tower and slab
blocks have been alternately glorified as the salvation of mankind and
scorned as generators of violence, blight, and misery. They have been
ignored, ridiculed, and occasionally dynamited.
Despite its global proliferation, mass-produced modernist
housing has been anything but a uniform program. The concrete blocks were
built under diverse social, cultural, and political circumstances. Despite
their formal similarities, Roosevelt Island, New York, Paris-Ivry, Berlin-Marzahn,
Stockholm-Rinkeby, Warsaw-Ochota, or downtown Novosibirsk are very different
urban environments and have spawned a wide range of cultural expressions.
We invite our panelists to investigate the condition of
modernist highrise developments over the course of the 20th century. We
particularly encourage contributions on the controversial perception of
these buildings at different points in time, and on the reciprocal influence
between urban design and cultural practice both at the level of centralized
planning and informal organization. Possible topics could include architectural
and social history, the peripheral condition, issues of race and migration,
or the reception of tower and slab developments in the arts.
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