Architecture 45+

Off to Berlin to present a paper on “Image Construction and Decline of West-German Public Housing, 1960s-1970s.”. I did quite some extra research for that presentation over the last weeks - primarily going through architectural journals. It’s probably enough material o write an article and maybe it can even serve as the basis for an application for research funding - we’ll see …

I am also looking forward to the conference because Stefanie Herold and Biljana Stefanovska want to initiate some kind of network. This could be a great chance to get a discussion going between architects and historians working on post 1945 architecture.

ESEH 2011 in Turku

What a great atmosphere at the European Society for Environmental History here in Turku. It is really easy to get in touch with all kinds of people - and that’s what conferences are about, aren’t they. Also heard some interesting presentations and discussions (especially Heike Weber’s small session on waste was very inspiring for me). It’s also an interesting experience to be in Finland: some of my expectations have been proved wrong - people do speak quite a bit ;) Besides Turku is a an interesting city with some elements that remind me of small cities in the north of the US and some elements that resemble eastern Europe. Well, I guess that’s no surprise considering Finish history.

History Underground

Just got back from the conference History Underground, held at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. It was the first time I presented my new project and some very preliminary results - the responses were quite encouraging. Besides, I got to know many people working in the field of an environmental history of mining and got an insight into the discussions going on in that community. Still, I discovered that most issues discussed there are not really what I am interested in doing in my own work - so yet again an indicator to clearly distinguish my project from mining history.

CFP: EAUH 2012 Session M43

Sent out the CfP for the Session Tom Hulme and I am organizing in Prague next year.

Call for Papers

European Association for Urban History, 11th International Conference on Urban History, Prague, August 29 - September 1, 2012, http://www.eauh2012.com

Main Session M43:

‘Rights and Responsibilities’: Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Cities

Session Organizers: Sebastian Haumann (Technische Universität Darmstadt) and Tom Hulme (University of Leicester)

Deadline: October 1, 2011

This session proposes to study the relationship between citizenship and the exercise, acquisition, or contestation of rights and responsibilities, as shaped by the social, economic and political context of the city. It aims to investigate especially the idea that citizenship is an ‘everyday’ pursuit, centred on ways of living, acting, and behaving in - but also affected by - the specificity of the cultural and physical urban environment. Approaching the twentieth-century on these terms is particularly important, as citizenship became more strongly located in the national - both in cultural and legal terms. It is perhaps by recognising, as Engin Isin reminds us, that it is still the city where the ‘lives of people are organized, assembled together, and rendered meaningful’ that require us to refocus the issue of citizenship. Despite the alleged importance of the nation-state, the locale is ‘the site through which socialization into various identities occurs, and … individuals develop both their individuality and their sociality.’ The session invites papers that assess these processes of identity formation and socialization in the city - what we might call ‘citizenship practices’.

Themes may include:

- the interaction between citizens and local government;

- the exclusion or ‘stripping’ of citizenship of the ‘other’ through segregation, legal apparatus, or public policy;

- the attempt by such marginalized groups to negotiate social rights or assert their identity as citizens of the local;

- the attempts to inculcate specific ideas of ‘rights and responsibilities’ in the inhabitants of the city by various agencies.

Papers that compare multiple locales to unpick these practices and relationships, both within and across nations, are especially welcome, as are papers that approach the topic in an interdisciplinary manner. Through this it is hoped that an assertion can be made that citizenship in the twentieth century did not ‘exist’ as an unvaried fact, but was actually an effective identity realised through a process of contestation and practices - facilitated, and perhaps necessitated, by the experience and particularity of the modern city.

Please submit paper proposals (500 words max.) before October 1, 2011 through the conference website at: http://www.eauh2012.com/sessions/call-for-paper-proposals/

In case you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the session organizers Sebastian Haumann (haumann@pg.tu-darmstadt.de) or Tom Hulme (th71@le.ac.uk)

Discussing Jane Jacobs and “Great Ideas”

At the “Queen Jane Jacobs” conference in Hamburg. What is it with planning history that it is so much about “great ideas”? I understand and accept that the ideas of intellectuals and important planners have some relevance, but also think it is necessary to look beyond (or more literally “below”) that and try to evaluate how “great ideas” related to implementation. Jacobs’ activism in New York during the 1960s might seem like a good starting point for this endeavor, but I still don’t see it done as consistently as it might be. It will be interesting to hear tomorrow’s talks.

SGWSG Conference

Back from the Swiss Society for Economic and Social History conference in Bern, this year with a focus on “habitation”. Met lots of interesting new people, great atmosphere and some vivid discussion. It was a really intense and worthwhile day-trip to Bern.

SGWSG Presentation

Preparing a presentation for the annual conference of the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in Bern next Saturday. My presentation will compare citizens’ initiatives strategies to provide low-income housing in the US and in West-Germany. Even though the problem was very similar on both sides of the Atlantic the citizens’ groups self-conception and their strategies were very different. The comparison also reveals quite a bit about local civil society and politics in both countries - in sum: in the US market mechanisms are much more respected and actually used while in German cities the parliamentary and administrative system is the focal point. I hope this paper will make it into a publication.

Praise for our EAUH 2010 Session

Browsing through the conference reports in the latest issue of the Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte, I came across a very flattering remark in Birgit Näther’s report on the 2010 EAUH conference. She wrote about the Session I co-organized with Peter Shapely: “Die Abschlussdiskussion erwies sich durch die Konzentration auf wesentliche Elemente der Vorträge als sehr fruchtbar.” Now that is real praise to me - thank you very much. That was really what we aimed for, and if it worked and other participants in the session felt that it did, that’s really great.

Urban History Group Meeting

Back from the Urban History Group meeting in Cambridge. It was nice going to a conference nearby, not presenting a paper and just listening and chatting with colleagues.