EAUH CFP "The Times are Changing: Cities, Seasons and Urban Life Around the World

Avi Sharma Announcement
Location
Belgium
Subject Fields
Environmental History / Studies, History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Humanities, Immigration & Migration History / Studies, Urban History / Studies

EAUH Antwerp 2020 (Sept. 2-5, 2020)

Submission Deadline: Oct. 1, 2019

Open to All Area and Temporal Fields

Short abstract:

How have seasons affected urban life throughout history?  How have they contributed to the mobilization of specific urban practices?  Our panels will investigate these questions in various geographical and temporal contexts.  The interdisciplinary panel will highlight the empirical circumstances and conceptualizations of the urban in relation to seasonal mobilities.

Session content:

Many cities around the world are affected by seasonal changes.  Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter lend distinct atmospheres to cities in some climate zones, while wet and dry seasons shape urban life in other climatic regions.  Urban seasons add another layer to the temporalities of cities but up to now they have not received much scholarly attention.

The proposed main session will explore seasonality in relation to questions of mobility broadly conceived.  The panel will center on the concept of seasonality to better understand how recurring patterns shape the way people, goods, services, capital, and concepts circulate.  We are equally interested in conceptual and empirical approaches towards seasonal mobilities as they affected the temporal rhythms and seasonal flows of people, animals, plants, goods, resources in and through cities.  How did seasonal variations affect such rhythms and flows, how did they enable (but also at times hinder) urban operations?  Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: the urban ecology of seasons, leisure and recreation, seasonal work, urban construction, the migration of plants and animals, urban infrastructural provisions, the arts, sports and fashion, the festivalization of cities, seasonal catastrophes and other environmental consequences of seasonal variations.  We look for contributions from any time period and across geographic regions that address the impact of such seasonal variation on urban life.  By urban life we mean both the everyday practices and institutional framings that undergird these practices and their mobilizations. 

This panel is intended as the first segment in a two-part series that is supposed to lead to the publication of a book on urban seasonalities.  The second conference will take place in Berlin in 2021.  Please submit a 200 word proposal that introduces your proposed topic and how it will relate to the notion of urban seasons, mobility, and the concept of temporality.

Questions and Contact: 

Please feel free to contact us with question @:

dorothee.brantz@metropolitanstudies.de or avi.sharma@metropolitanstudies.de

Contact Information

Dorothee Brantz (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin)

Avi Sharma (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin)

Contact Email
avi.sharma@metropolitanstudies.de