[artinfo] Conference: Visions and Experiences of Urban Change in the Second World."

[vitalie sprinceana]

On August 25-27, 2017 the Center for Urban History will host a 
conference "The Ins and Outs of Socialism: Visions and Experiences of 
Urban Change in the Second World."

This conference aims at bringing together scholars who study 
different time periods and cities where socialist projects were 
either launched or collapsed in the 20th century, as well as those 
that are still in place. The theme of transition into and out of 
socialism and the (un-)making of socialist cities serves as entry 
points into broader discussions about the specificity of urban change 
in the Second World and its relationship to similar currents in the 
global North and South. The conference examines the content of the 
socialist city - its "ins and outs" - from power grids and housing 
stocks to museums and places of worship at these points of 
transition. Looking at the series of junctures that produced new 
forms of urbanity can help create a fresh narrative of socialist 
urban experiences and visions at the crucial moments of their 
realizations and reconceptualizations as both the future and the past 
of the socialist project.

The conference invites proposals in all fields of the humanities and 
social sciences, and aims to bring into conversation scholars who 
focus on vastly different periods and locations of the socialist 
city's past and present. We seek proposals that include but are not 
limited to the following points of entry or exit: late imperial and 
the early Soviet/Socialist period; the continuities and ruptures of 
1939/40 and 1944/45 in the making of the "socialist bloc" and the 
"Soviet west"; the years of launching and leaving socialist projects 
in the Global South; and most recently, 1989/91 as a major divide in 
socialism's "before" and "after" as a state, a geopolitical actor, 
and a vision of the future. The conference will specifically examine 
the role of cities and their transformation during the transition 
periods in or out of socialism. Focusing on these turning points in 
the history of Second World urbanity can help us examine in more 
detail the key resources and materials, both symbolic and physical, 
and the major actors, both human and non-human, that engaged in the 
making and unmaking of socialism. We hope that bringing together a 
wide range of cases, both chronologically and geographically, will 
help generate stimulating discussions and allow participants to 
assess the characteristic peculiarities and ramifications of the 
societies and cities that embraced and later abandoned socialism all 
across the Second World.

For more information and suggested themes 
please <http://www.lvivcenter.org/download.php?downloadid=625>download CfP.

Deadlines:

Please submit a brief CV (1-2 pages) and paper proposal (paper title 
+ 400 word abstract) no later than January 15, 
2017 to <mailto:conferences at lvivcenter.org>conferences at lvivcenter.org with 
the subject "Ins Outs of Socialism." Your proposal should relate your 
topic to conference theme(s) and briefly discuss primary sources. The 
conference language will be English. The conference selection 
committee will announce its selection of papers for the conference by 
February 15, 2017.

Funding:

The organizers will provide accommodation in Lviv. A limited number 
of travel grants will be available.

Conveners:

Daria Bocharnikova (KU Leuven / The Center for Fine Arts BOZAR)
Sofia Dyak (Center for Urban History)
Steven E. Harris (University of Mary Washington / National Air and 
Space Museum)

Organizations:

<http://www.lvivcenter.org/>Center for Urban History
<http://www.secondworldurbanity.org/>Second World Urbanity network

Contacts:

<mailto:conferences at lvivcenter.org>conferences at lvivcenter.org
<mailto:secondworldurbanity at gmail.com>secondworldurbanity at gmail.com