November 2009
Centre for Urban History
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Welcome to Urban History News - a monthly digest of news and information for the urban history community.
Urban History Group Conference 2010
Transgressive Cities: Practices and Place
This conference explores the relationships between practices of resistance and transgression and the exercise of authority in urban spaces. Participants are invited to consider the implications of Lewis Mumford’s understanding of the city as a stage upon which daily life is enacted and as ‘a theatre of social action’. In particular, cities are often places in which acts of transgression, resistance and control emerge to challenge and uphold normative rules and patterns of behaviour. Urban space simultaneously becomes a site of freedom and control as well as the exercise of authority and discipline. In this context, the city becomes a space in which challenges to authority and, conversely, the exercise of power are deliberately made visible. At the same time, other forms of resistance are intentionally more covert, choosing to remain hidden rather than become public. Urban authorities react to these challenges by seeking to subvert, restrict or prohibit practices that they readily identify as transgressive. In the context of cities, papers are invited that explore the concepts of vision, visibility, display, subversion, transgression, resistance, power and authority. The nature of places in which such practices take place and the way that those are inscribed in the urban landscape are also topics to be discussed.
The conference committee invites proposals for individual papers as well as for individual sessions of up to three papers. Abstract of up to 500 words, including a 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 theme 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 paper abstracts. The deadline for proposals for sessions and papers is 15 December 2009.
In addition, the conference will also host a new researchers’ forum, aimed primarily at those who are at an early stage in a research project and who wish primarily to discuss ideas rather than present findings. New and current postgraduates working on topics unrelated to the main theme, as well as those just embarking on new research, are particularly encouraged to submit short papers for this forum.
Pre Modern Towns Group Conference 2010
PROTEST AND UNREST
The 32nd annual meeting of historians, geographers, archaeologists and others working on the medieval and early modern town will be held on Saturday 31 January 2009 at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, WC1.
Download Programme and Registration form
Multiple Belongings: Diaspora and Transnational Homes
21 May 2010 • London, UK
The Histories of Home Subject Specialist Network (SSN) invites papers for its second annual conference, to be held in London at the British Library.
The conference will examine migrants’ homes across the globe from early civilisations to the present. We are particularly interested in the material aspects of setting up home in another country, such as room layouts, furnishings and other possessions and how these are adapted, integrated or negotiated between host nation and place of origin.
Heritage 2010
22-26 June 2010 • Évora, Portugal
The Green Lines Institute is organizing the international event HERITAGE 2010 - 2nd International Conference on Heritage and Sustainable Development,
to be held at the City of Évora, Portugal.
Submission of Abstracts is open until 30 November 2009 and papers addressing the following topics are welcome:
Heritage and Governance for Development, Heritage and Education Policies, Heritage and Culture, Heritage and Economics, Heritage and Environment, and Heritage and Society
Identity and the Other British Isles
24-25 June 2010 • Huddersfield, UK
As issues of nationalism, identity, and what it means to be 'British' continue to affect the cultural and political landscape of Britain itself, its impact on the islands that share (or have shared) a cultural heritage with the United Kingdom has become new ground for academics.
The Academy for the Study of Britishness at the University of Huddersfield welcomes proposals for 20-minute papers from academics, postgraduate students, independent scholars, and other professionals to present at its Identity and the other British Isles conference on 24-25 June 2010.
The conference will bring together research from a range of disciplines in order to explore issues of Britishness within island culture and society. Papers are welcomed on the identities, cultures, history, heritage, and society of any island/islands which share a cultural heritage with Britain. This includes islands within the ‘British archipelago’ and around the world. The focus of the conference is on smaller islands, and those whose relationships with Britain and Britishness have been often neglected in academic study.
VAHS Annual Conference
14-16 July 2010 • Canterbury, UK
The next Voluntary Action History Society conference will be held at the Canterbury Campus of the University of Kent in partnership with the Centre for Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice. The keynote speakers will be Emeritus Professor Hugh Cunningham, University of Kent and Professor Clare Midgley, Sheffield Hallam University. The conference will include excursions to local sites of historical interest, such as the historic dockyard at Chatham.
Proposals are invited for papers on any aspect of charity and voluntary action in any historical period.
Gender and the Pre-Modern City
11-12 September 2010 • Nottingham, UK
Cities have long been the focus for research, centring on space in all its manifest forms. Theoretical approaches have taken the lead from Foucault's and Bourdieu's discussions on the intersection between time and space, and have applied to space the work of Habermas, as well as theories on the political, cultural and social functions of cities, such as those of Saskia Sassen. Cities play a key role in World Systems Theory (out of which were derived the notions of 'core and periphery' and 'globalization') and post-colonial historical approaches to cities as centres of political, economic and cultural hegemony. Following these leads, scholars have developed a range of theoretical models concerned with, for example, structuration and social agency. This conference aims to bring together new scholarship to develop a variety of theoretical approaches and case studies to explore notions of gender and its operation, in the setting of the pre-modern city across temporal and geographical boundaries.
Re-appraising the Neo-Georgian 1880-1980
05-06 May 2011 • London, UK
The conference seeks to address the Georgian as a widespread movement across the arts embracing literature, film and art as well as its better known manifestations in architecture, town planning, landscape and design. Papers might also investigate the role of museums and curators in constructions of the Georgian and equally the role of interior decorators, such as Colefax and Fowler. The historiography and public reception of the Georgian is another area of growing scholarship which it is hoped to include. Conceptions of exactly when and what constituted the "Georgian" have varied considerably from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The aim of this conference, as the first on the subject to be held in Britain, is to investigate how, where, when and why the neo-Georgian has been represented over the course of the last century and to assess its impact as a broader cultural phenomenon.
Oral History Association Award
The OHA 2009 Book Award for Outstanding Use of Oral History has been presented to former CUH student Joanna Herbert for Negotiating Boundaries in the City: Migration, Ethnicity, and Gender in Britain.
The OHA Book Award was established in 1993 to recognize a published book that uses oral history to make a significant contribution to contemporary scholarship; and/or significantly advances understanding of important theoretical issues in oral history; and/or is an outstanding example of sound oral history methodology.
Joanna Herbert studied for her PhD at the CUH and then went on to complete an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, also at the Centre.
New Blood Lectureship
Chinese Urban History
The purpose of this post is to contribute high quality research and teaching in the urban history of modern China (post-1800). The person appointed will be expected to contribute actively to the life of the Centre for Urban History (CUH) and to promote urban history as a subject.
For the first four years the post holder will fulfil the duties specific to the New Blood lectureships. The post holder will be responsible to the Head of School of Historical Studies and after the fourth year will be expected to cover normal duties: undertake undergraduate and post-graduate teaching and research in the field of Chinese Urban History, administration and other activities that contribute to, and support the work of the School in developing and enhancing its reputation, both internal and external to the University.
upcoming events...
12-13 November 2009
Pomp and Power
London, UK
14 November 2009
Midlands History Graduate Conference
Leicester, UK
20-21 November 2009
Complexities of 'Europe'
Cambridge, UK
21 November 2009
Women’s Life and Leisure
Stoke-on-Trent, UK
21 November 2009
Local Population Studies Society Autumn Conference
Cambridge, UK
27 November 2009
Networks, Architecture and City Space
Edinburgh, UK
03 December 2009
Bad Behaviour in Medieval & Early Modern Europe
Canterbury, UK
04 December 2009
Cartography and Urban Society
Paris, France
04 December 2009
Homicide: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
Milton Keynes, UK
approaching deadlines...
12 November
Complexities of 'Europe' (registration)
30 November
2010 IPHS book prizes (call for nominations)
Cities and Nationalisms 
01 December
URBAN HISTORY GROUP
Borders and Identities (early-bird registration)
EAUH - GHENT 2010
VAHS Annual Conference
CUH seminars...
CUH Seminar Series 2009-10:
2009-10 marks the 25th Anniversary Year at CUH.
other seminar series...
Ottoman Urban Studies 2009-10
Berlin, Germany
Historical Perspectives: Work in Progress Seminars
Glasgow, UK
Birkbeck Urban Studies Group
London, UK
IHR Sport & Leisure History
London, UK
exhibitions...
London's Burning
(online to 06 December 2009)
recent publication
Generations in Towns, edited by Finn-Einar Eliassen and Katalin Szende, is offered to UHN readers at a discount of 25%. Contact orders@c-s-p.org quoting 'gin25%' to obtain the discount.
Deadline for next issue:
01 December 2009
Back copies of UHN remain on-line for 6 months. Earlier issues are available on request.
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