CFP: Urban Knowledge
Urban History
Group 2015
University of
Wolverhampton, 26-27 March
Urban
Knowledge
This
conference seeks to engage with a number of questions concerning the
relationship between the city and knowledge. How is knowledge in, and of, the
city formed and expressed? How is this knowledge used to manage and inform
urban change? What constitutes ‘expert’ knowledge? How is knowledge contested
between and within interest groups? The conference has three main areas for
enquiry:
1. Knowledge
in the City: This strand seeks to engage with the development
of urban spaces and institutions for knowledge exchange. Suggestions for topics
include:
-
How were cities used as places to disseminate
knowledge through, for example, itinerant lecturers, print culture, scientific
meetings and learned societies?;
-
Libraries, reading rooms, museums, and halls as spaces
that condition knowledge;
-
The development of medical, scientific and technical
knowledge, and professional societies, in relation to towns and cities;
-
The intelligentsia and the production of knowledge.
2. Knowledge
of the City: This strand seeks to examine how urban dwellers developed
understandings of their surroundings. Suggestions for topics include:
-
The extent to which conflict and crisis disrupted and
changed urban dweller’s knowledge of the city
-
The role of the senses in shaping knowledge and behaviour
in the city;
-
The ways in which formal knowledge-gathering exercises
such as mapping, measuring and numbering informed individual behaviour and
urban change;
-
The use of literary and visual sources such as
photographs and travel writing in revealing understandings of the city.
3. Knowledge
and the City: This strand seeks to uncover how the nature of the urban
environment shaped the knowledge produced and communicated in the city.
Suggestions for topics include:
-
How did the social, economic and demographic
characteristics of towns and cities influence the way people acquired and
communicated knowledge?;
-
Did civic leaders seek to foster knowledge as an
element of civic boosterism and place marketing?
-
What are the relationships between knowledge and
social capital?
-
Are there hierarchies of urban knowledge?
The conference committee invites proposals for individual papers
as well as for panel sessions of up to 3 papers. Sessions that seek to
draw comparisons across one or more countries, or open up new vistas for
original research, are particularly encouraged.
Abstracts of up to 500 words,
including a paper or panel title, name, affiliation and contact details should
be submitted to the conference organiser and should indicate clearly how the
content of the paper addresses the conference themes outlined above. Those wishing
to propose sessions should provide a brief statement that identifies the ways
in which the session will address the conference theme, a list of speakers, and
abstracts. The final deadline for proposals for sessions and papers is 30
September 2014.
The conference will again host its new researchers’ forum. This
is aimed primarily at those who, at an early stage of a PhD or research project, wish primarily to discuss ideas rather than
present findings. Short new researchers’ papers need not be related to the main
conference theme. Additionally, there will be some limited opportunities for first-year
PhD students to present a 10 minute introduction to their topic, archival
materials and the specific urban historiography. The intention is to obtain
feedback from active researchers in the field of Urban History.
Bursaries. Students registered for a
PhD can obtain a modest bursary on a first come, first served basis to offset
expenses associated with conference registration and attendance. Please send an
e-mail application to Professor Richard Rodger at richard.rodger@ed.ac.uk and also ask
your PhD supervisor to confirm your status as a registered PhD student with an
e-mail to the same address. Deadline 1 December 2014. The Urban History
Group would like to acknowledge the Economic History Society for its support
for these bursaries.
For further details and to submit your abstract please contact the
Conference Organiser:
Dr Rebecca Madgin,
Urban Studies
School of Social & Political Sciences
University of Glasgow
Tel: 0141 330 3847
Email: rebecca.madgin@glasgow.ac.uk
For New Researchers
Maarten Walraven
School of Arts, Languages & Cultures
University of Manchester
University of Manchester