The Street and The City – Thresholds is the second of a series of multidisciplinary conferences with special emphasis on cities and the life that has evolved around them through time. Although English studies play a central role in this conference series from both cultural and geographical points of view, other fields of study relating to the conference theme are welcome. The first International Conference The Street and the City – Awakenings drew participants from a wide array of disciplines, such as literature, architecture, sociology, tourism or gender studies, to name but a few. This second conference aims for a comprehensive view of the street and the city focusing on its streets and people as well as on its less known spaces and hidden gems.
Throughout the centuries cities have been hubs of cultural experience and exchange, bringing people together time and again. The streets have been the public space where peoples and individuals both merge in a web and are isolated in the crowd. Cities have also channelled the voices of unsatisfied or rebellious citizens in periods of crises, or become a platform for gathering collective support in dire moments. In times of such conflicts, cities open up spaces for hope and multicultural dialogue. Such dynamics and challenges of an urban milieu constantly pose new questions to researchers concerning, for example, aspects of aesthetic and political representation, and the ways they are interpreted and experienced. Thus, studies of such currents and challenges have become highly diversified, promoting a variety of perspectives of the space we identify ourselves with.
Lisbon is the 2017 Ibero-American Capital of Culture, in the words of the City Council, an “event [which] will be the catalyst for a year of artistic innovation, in which there will be recognition of the historical processes and exchanges of ideas that underpin the relationships between European and American cities, and an acknowledgement of current artistic production, which is unique and intrinsically diverse”. In this sense, we wish to welcome everyone to share this urban atmosphere, which goes beyond the boundaries of Europe and connects the city in a global way.
The Second International Conference The Street and the City – Thresholds will take place at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, and at the Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies from 5 to 7 April 2017.
This scholarly meeting keeps its primary goal of fostering an interdisciplinary debate within English studies and of serving as a productive space for disseminating the most recent academic research alongside the studies of culture, urban studies and other fields of interest in relation to cities, their spaces and cultures. While encouraging the interchange of different academic perspectives, the Organising Committee also aims to promote informal networking gatherings among its participants.
As such, topics and themes of interest – related to the Street and/or the City – include, but are not restricted to, the following:
1. Aesthetic Representations of the City
2. Cities as Havens of Hope or Despair
3. Streets and Cities as Hives of Negotiation
4. Gendered Urban Spaces
5. Imagined Cities
6. Literary Cities
7. Mobility in the City and Urban Flows
8. Streets, Consumerism and Fashion
9. Sustainable Cities
10. The City and Community Expressions
11. The City and the Commons
12. The Street and the Senses
13. The Political Street
14. The Tourist and the Flâneur
15. Urban Cultural Heritage
16. Urban Rhythms
We welcome suggestions for papers, pre-organised panels, and roundtables (20 minutes per speaker) by 10th March 2017, to be submitted on the conference webpage:
www.thestreetandthecitylx.wordpress.com
Contact email: thestreetandthecity@gmail.com
Abstracts of 300 words for individual papers of twenty-minute duration. Please include the full title of your paper, name, institutional affiliation, contact information (postal address and e-mail address) and a bionote (max. 100 words).
Round tables of up to four speakers plus a chairperson. Please include a 500-word proposal and a bionote for each speaker (max. 100 words each).
Panels of three speakers plus a chairperson. Please include a brief description of the panel (300 words) and a 300-word abstract and a bionote for each speaker (max. 100 words each).
Conference languages: English and Portuguese
Selected peer reviewed publication