Urban Cultures (Birmingham)
Urban / Visual Culture (Nottingham)
Urban Cultures Seminars
University of Birmingham
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The Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham runs a bimonthly seminar programme in urban cultures. We hope this seminar will be of interest to scholars across disciplines with an interest in urban-focused research. The impetus for the seminar has roots in a collaborative research project on representations of the modern American city being carried out by Americanists at Birmingham and the University of Nottingham. This project has brought us into contact with scholars in urban studies, cultural geography, critical theory and visual studies who have been advancing fresh theoretical thinking about ‘the city’, and particularly about the spatial formations of urban identity. While these contacts are forming the basis of further collaborative work (conferences and publications) we are keen also to have a working, ‘face to face’ seminar which will allow informal communication of ideas and interests on a regular basis.
The seminar is not a site for formal paper presentations (though this may occasionally happen), rather we have assigned readings and introductory commentators who lead discussion. The seminar has been running for some months now and we have a core group of regular attendees, however the seminar is open to all and we would welcome any new faces.
The Urban Cultures seminars for the academic year 2000/2001 are as follows:
Saturday 21st October, 1.30pm to 4.30pm
Steve Pile (Open University) discussing the City A-Z.
Readings will be taken from Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift (eds), City A-Z (Routledge, 2000). Steve Pile will introduce a discussion on ways to read, map and respond to the city, using the City A-Z as a starting point for discussion. Attendees are asked to prepare to engage with this discussion, reflecting on their own disciplinary practices, and research interests, rather than complete set readings. We hope lively discussion will ensue!
Saturday 25th November, 1.30pm to 4.30pm
Seminar leader to be confirmed
Saturday 24th February, 10.00am to 6.00pm 2001
One Day Symposium on Postnational Spaces
Donald Pease (Dartmouth, USA) and Liam Kennedy (Birmingham) will lead a one day event, with papers by scholars currently working on ideas of post national spaces, identity and citizenship. The symposium will culminate in a roundtable session with all those who have taken part in the day.
Provisional Programme
Dislocations: Transatlantic Perspectives on Postnational American Studies
10.00-10.30 |
Arrival and registration |
10.30-11.30 |
Keynote Address |
11.30-12.00 |
Tea/Coffee |
12.00-1.00 |
American Studies in Europe |
1.00-2.00 |
Lunch |
2.00-3.30 |
Black and White Atlantics |
3.30-4.00 |
Tea/Coffee |
4.00-5.00 |
Urban Visions |
5.00-5.15 |
Tea/Coffee |
5.15-6.00 |
Round table |
For more information on this please contact W.G.Kennedy@bham.ac.uk
Saturday March 10th, 1.30 to 4.30
Seminar led by Maria Balshaw (Birmingham) on race and urban space (readings to be announced)
Saturday May 12th, 1.30 to 4.30
Seminar led by Deborah Parsons (Birmingham) on cinema and the city (readings to be announced).
The seminars take place in Room 103, Arts Building, University of Birmingham. Tea/coffee/wine will be provided. If you would like to be kept informed of the seminar activities or require further details please contact Dr Maria Balshaw Tel. 0121 414 3274 email M.J.Balshaw@bham.ac.uk at Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT. Fax 0121 414 6866.
Urban / Visual Culture Seminars
University of Nottingham
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The School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham runs a seminar programme in Urban/Visual Culture.
We hope to meet monthly in informal discussion style with the idea of the seminar being to explore the possibilities for visual & urban culture: can visual theory claim a place among the central theoretical questions of the day? Is visual culture a tactic to address the short term crisis or should it start to become a discipline? How interdisciplinary is it possible to be in this field: that is, can the current interface between film and art history be extended to include fields such as cultural studies and urban studies in particular?
We are planning to have assigned readings and introductory commentators who lead discussion, however the seminar could also be a place for paper presentations.
Seminar Programme in Urban/Visual Culture, academic year 2000-1
The first meeting is scheduled on November 30th at 5pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American and Canadian Studies. Assigned reading: "The City in the Field of Vision" in K. Robins, Into the Image: Culture and Politics in the Field of Vision, London & N.Y., Routledge, 1996.
The second meeting is scheduled on January 11th at 5pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American and Canadian Studies. John Walsh will give a presentation entitled 'The Attraction of the Flatiron Building: Construction Processes'. John's essay is included in City Sites: an Electronic Book and can be viewed at www.citysites.org.uk
The third meeting is scheduled on February 22nd at 5pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American and Canadian Studies. Assigned reading: "The City as Dreamworld and Catastrophe" by Susan Buck-Morss, October, vol. 73, 1995.
The fourth meeting is scheduled on March 15th at 5pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American and Canadian Studies. Assigned reading: Nicholas Mirzoeff "What is Visual Culture" and Irit Rogoff "Studying Visual Culture" in N. Mirzoeff ed. Visual Culture Reader, Routledge, 1998.
The fifth meeting is scheduled on May 17th at 5.pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American & Canadian Studies. Assigned readings: W.J.T.Mitchell, Picture Theory, The University of Chicago Press, 1994 pp. 1-17. Barbara Maria Stafford, Good Looking, Essays on the Virtue of Images, MIT Press, 1996 (Introduction).
The last meeting is scheduled on June 7th at 5.pm in Room B42 in the School of American & Canadian Studies. Steve Giles (German Dept. Nottingham) will present his essay 'Limits of the Visible: Kracauer's Photographic Dystopia'
Seminar Programme in Urban/Visual Culture, academic year 2001-2
First meeting - November 1st at 5pm in the Seminar Room of the School of American and Canadian Studies. Assigned reading: "Showing seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture' by W.J.T. Mitchell, paper given at the Visual Rhetoric Conference, Indiana University. September 2001 and 'Interdisciplinarity and Visual Culture' by W.J.T. Mitchell, Art Bulletin, vol. LXXVII, 4, Dec. 1995
Second meeting - November 29th. Assigned reading: 'The Psychology of the Photoplay' in The film: a psychological study the silent photoplay in 1916, by Hugo Mánsterberg, Dover publications, NY.pp.18-39.
Third meeting - January 10th 2002. Assigned reading: 'Attention and Judgement' in Phenomenology of Perception, by M. Merleau-Ponty, Routledge, 1962. pp26-51.
If you would like to be kept informed of the seminar activities or require further details please contact Anna Notaro Tel. 0115 9514241 email Anna.Notaro@nottingham.ac.uk at School of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD. Fax 0115 9514270.