Studies of the City: Towards an Interdisciplinary and Trans-regional Approach
CASAW Workshop
5-6 September 2008
The University of Manchester
This two-day workshop aims to bring together academics whose research and writings focus on studying the city in different subject areas as well as in different parts of the world. The speakers will present papers which will discuss and explore new theoretical approaches with respect to studying today’s city.
The city has been a subject of considerable critical enquiry and research in various fields of knowledge within academia. For example, theories on modernity, surrealism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, feminism, and the situationists have all contributed invaluable ideas and approaches to our understanding of the city. In particular, these theories have examined the modern city in relation to time and space, history and culture, colonial and postcolonial times, and gender relations. The workshop aims to engage with and investigate new theoretical approaches and methods in studying the cities we live in today. This is particularly pertinent at this moment of time which is marred by religious extremism, civil wars, and new forms of imperialism and neo-colonialism, together with the increasing effects of migration, and the introduction of new laws and regulations which restrain our freedom of speech and mobility from one place to another (Palestine is a case in point here).
The workshop will address the question: can we only rely on established theories and research methods in studying the city, or is it time to explore and introduce new ones, so as to be able to analyse and interpret current concerns across disciplines, cultures and regions? The workshop also aims to investigate other questions and issues such as:
- What are some of the new and innovative research tools which will enable us to analyse and interpret the city in art and literature, history, politics and economics, archaeology, and other disciplines?
- Why is it important to study the city from both an interdisciplinary and trans-regional dimensions?
- How can we define temporal and spatial relations in today’s city, particularly in relation to gender?
- As academics and researchers, how can we engage with new popular forms of cultural and artistic production, which influence and shape today’s city?
- How does the influx of migration resulting from civil wars, global political and economic policies, and institutional restrictions on the freedom of expression in many parts of the world, influence our everyday life in the city?
- Is it important to found the discipline ‘Studies of the City’ in our universities?
Each speaker will present a 30-minute paper. This will be followed by a ten-minute intervention/commentary by another speaker; the floor will then be open for questions and answers for another twenty-minutes. In this way, each speaker will have one hour of presentation and discussion.
The workshop is funded by the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), which is a joint project between the universities of Manchester, Edinburgh, and Durham. The workshop is organised by Dr Dalia Mostafa, CASAW Postdoctoral Research Fellow in modern Arab cultural history at Middle Eastern Studies, the University of Manchester. All travel and accommodation expenses for speakers from outside Manchester will be covered by CASAW. For more information on CASAW, please visit its website: http://www.casaw.ac.uk.
Abstracts of papers will be submitted via email to Dalia Mostafa by 1st July 2008, and the papers (5000 – 6000 words) will be sent by 15th August 2008, to allow time for all participants to circulate and read them. After the workshop, it is intended to submit a book proposal to the Manchester University Press to publish the papers in an edited collection. This issue will be discussed during the workshop to agree on a timeframe to submit the final papers for publication.
Schedule
* Attendance of the workshop is free for colleagues and students, but lunch, tea and coffee on both days will be provided for participants only.
Friday 5 September (Room SG1 – Samuel Alexander Building)
10:30 – 11:00 Tea & Coffee
11:00 – 11:15 Welcome and open remarks by Dalia Mostafa
11:15 – 12:15 Christiane Gruber (Indiana), “Return, Retribution, and
Reward: Messianism as Municipal Matter in Post-Revolutionary Tehran”
Respondent: Anna Ball
12:15 – 1:15 Anne Alexander (SOAS), “’The Street is Ours?’ Reflections on Collective Action and Public Space in Egypt since 1945”
Respondent: Bridget Byrne
1:15 – 2:15 Lunch
2:15 – 3:15 Dalia Mostafa (Manchester), “Cinematic Representations of the Changing Gender Relations in Today’s Cairo”
Respondent: Lúcia Sá
3:15 – 4:15 Anna Ball (Nottingham Trent), “Jerusalem’s ‘Negative Spaces’: Exploring Urban Alterity in the Work of Oz and Suleiman”
Respondent: Eyal Sivan
4:15 – 4:30 Tea & Coffee
4:30 – 6:00 Eyal Sivan (East London), “Filming the City” + a screening of a film by Sivan
Respondent: Anne Alexander
7:00 Dinner (for participants)
Saturday 6 September (Room W3.13 - Samuel Alexander Building)
9:30 – 10:00 Tea & Coffee
10:00 – 11:00 Christina Horvath (Oxford Brookes), “Studying the French Suburbs from an Interdisciplinary Perspective”
Respondent: Christiane Gruber
11:00 – 12:00 Stephan Milich (Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies - Marburg), “A City of Exiles: Postcolonial London in the Poetry of Fadwa Tuqan and Sa’di Yusuf”
Respondent: Haifa Zangana
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 Nicole Weickgenannt (Manchester Metropolitan), “Real and Metaphorical Cities in Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence”
Respondent: Stephan Milich
2:00 – 3:00 Bridget Byrne (Manchester), “All in the Mix”
Respondent: Christina Horvath
3:00 – 3:15 Tea & Coffee
3:15 – 4:15 Lúcia Sá (Manchester), “Flânerie and Nostalgia in the Monstrous City: São Paulo in Recent Cinema”
Respondent: Dalia Mostafa
4:15 – 5:15 Haifa Zangana (London), “Baghdad in my Novels: A Testimony”
Respondent: Nicole Weickgenannt
5:15 – 5:45 Overview, Summary and Comments
