CFP: Under construction, Stuttgart November 2013
CFP: Under construction – Construction sites: Building the material and
the imaginary world, Stuttgart, 15-16 November 2013, Deadline March 1
2013
Under construction – Construction sites: Building the material and the
imaginary world
On construction sites the world is altered in a very solid, material
way. That’s not the whole story, of course: If someone builds a house, a
railroad or any other thing, there is more under construction than the
mere object itself. With spade and excavator contemporary imaginations,
visions and historical concepts are equally reshaped or renewed.
Interventions into the physical landscape are always accompanied by
interventions into the imaginary landscape. The conference will examine
the discursive alongside the performative construction of reality when
things are being built. Construction sites are ideal objects for a
cultural studies approach, as they show in a very literary sense, that
the world not so much has a certain state, but that the world is
constantly being rebuilt, reshaped and reimagined.
Some examples might illustrate this. The construction of railroads in
the middle of the 19th century was not simply the construction of a
section of track. The rails closed the gap between experiences and
expectations (Koselleck) as they became agents of progress or national
unity. Or take the construction of the Panama Canal, where more than a
waterway was built. Of course this canal would reduce the distances
between the oceans. But the construction site was at the same time
US-America’s “Seaway to the future”, forming a laboratory for the
establishments’ ideas of class, race and gender. Besides its military
and economic importance, the site was the place to establish an ideal
USA: On “the isthmus, the modern American nation was under
construction.”(1) Other examples are highway-projects during the Third
Reich. Here the Nazis build “Culturally altered landscape” alongside
“Physically altered landscapes.”(2)
Suez Canal, Hoover or Assuan Dam, Pacific Railroad, Eiffel Tower or
Crystal Palace on the World Fairs – these internationally recognized
projects used to be construction sites of world-interpretation as well.
Take the Gotthard Tunnel; its construction was orchestrated by the
construction of Swiss identity.(3) Historical, technological, artistic
or anthropologic museums bound facades and objects in contexts which
promoted national or imperial “Imagined Communities”.
The topic of the conference should by no means be reduced to such major
projects of the 19th or 20th century. Hopefully, important construction
sites on regional or local levels will find attention too. Contributions
from the classical antiquity to contemporary history are highly welcome,
including disciplines outside the narrower field of history. What have
anthropologists to say about construction sites? How were construction
sites represented in art and literature?
Contributors are asked to reflect two things. They should portray
construction sites as places where the landscape is altered physically,
as well as places that shape and change perceptions, ideas and knowledge
about the world. Central to the submissions should be, how a
construction site produces our material world as well as our concepts of
the world. The conference will take place in the vicinity of the major
works currently under way in Stuttgart. The major political dispute
about the city’s new main station illustrates how conflictive worlds
under construction can be.
The conference will be held in English. The contributions will be
published. Deadline for submissions (app. 300 words) is March 1 2013.
Expenses for accommodation and travels can be reimbursed.
The conference is organised by the Section for the History of the
Impact of Technology of Stuttgart University in cooperation with the
IZKT (Internationales Zentrum für Kultur- und Technikforschung),
University Stuttgart.
Contact:
Eike-Christian Heine MA
University Stuttgart Department of History
Section for the History of the Impact of Technology
Keplerstr. 17 D-70174 Stuttgart
Tel +49 711 685 84355
Literature
(1) Missal, Alexander: American Social Visions and the Construction of
the Panama Canal, Madison und London 2008, S. 8.
(2) Zeller, Thomas: Driving Germany, The landscape of the German
Autobahn, 1930-1970, NY, Oxford 2007.
(3) Schüler, Judith: Materialising identity, the co-construction of the
Gotthardt Railway and Swiss national identity, Amsterdam 2008.