[Oberlist] UK* cfp: Nationalism and the City, CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 10-11 February 2011

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [balkans] CfP: Nationalism and the City, CRASSH, University of
Cambridge, 10-11 February 2011
From:    "Rory Archer" <rory.archer at uni-graz.at>
Date:    Fri, July 1, 2011 8:47 am
To:      balkans at yahoogroups.com
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Call for Papers: 'Nationalism and the City'

Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH),
University of Cambridge, UK Conference Date: 10-11 February 2012

http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1684/

Call for papers now open. Proposals of no more than 250 words creatively
addressing aspects of the attached conference summary are most welcome.

Deadline: 1 October 2011. Submit to: nationalismandthecity at gmail.com


Conference Summary

Blame it, perhaps, on a hangover from nationalism's early mingling with
European romantics, but the primacy of `the rural' in nationalist
imaginaries remains well established, recurring in political and cultural
discourse as the fundamental site of national authenticity, tradition and
identity. This tendency has resulted in a distortion of nationalism's
crucial yet ambivalent relationship with the pastoral inverse – the smoky,
crowded, dynamic space of `the urban' – and despite the usual eagerness of
scholars to dismantle any and all `myths' propagated by nationalist
paradigms, very little has been done to theorize this pivotal interplay
between nationalism and the city.

How are we to understand the role of cities in nationalism's pasts,
presents and futures?

The urban landscape is at once intensely local and profoundly global,
while commonly appropriated (internally or externally) as a compelling
(though never uncontested) representation of `the national whole'. It was
through cities that intellectuals traded early ideas of `the nation', and
it is in cities that national identities have been pushed to their
breaking points.
The urban has helped to shape the national and this relation also works in
reverse: cities can be sites for national consolidation and commemoration,
but also facilitate the emergence of `spaces of alterity' and zones of
conflict.

This conference will move to `re-centre' the urban in theories of nations
and nationalism, facilitating a dialogue across disciplines to address the
many layers of what has been described as `the urban palimpsest'. A
special emphasis will be placed on integrating the insights of those
focused on dynamics in the city and those addressing the broader
phenomenon of nationalism, to enliven debates on space, identity, and
politics and to illuminate important convergences and contradictions,
conjunctures and disjunctures.

The task for researchers is as follows: how are we to conceptualize the
role of cities/urban environments in the
origins/spread/perpetuation/undermining of nations and nationalism?

The continuities and variations in urban forms across continents
necessitates a global focus, and participants are encouraged to consider
the transnational dimension of both `the urban' and `the nation' as
sociological phenomena and cognitive categories.

Suggested focal points include:
▪ Urbanization/modernization and the conditions of nationalism's
emergence ▪ Urban intellectual networks and the global diffusion of
nationalism ▪ Cities as battle-space and/or as sites for
mobilization ▪ National unity and the urban/rural `divide'
▪ The city as metaphor for nation
▪ Globalizing cities, `post-nationalism', and notions of urban
reclamation ▪ Cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and layers of belonging
▪ Multiculturalism, heterogeneity and the urban ▪
Disintegration, dystopia and `spaces of alterity'

Applicants are encouraged especially to engage with the existing
theoretical literature on nations, nationalism and the city.

http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1684/




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