Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Residence Grant Program at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe

The Center for Urban History of East Central Europe invites
applications for the annual Residence Grant Program.

The Center welcomes applications which reflect a broad interpretation
of urban history as a discipline where diverse humanities and social
science approaches meet. Projects can be based, for instance, on one
or several of the following approaches: "traditional" archival
research, oral history, ethnographic, or sociological methodologies.

Residence Grants will be available for postgraduate students and
scholars (independently of citizenship or place of work or residence)
interested in working in Lviv.

The grants consist of up to one month of free accommodation at the
Center and access to the Center's resources. Recipients will be given
a room in the Center´s modern shared guest appartment. All rooms face
the Center's green courtyard and have wireless internet
connection.The grants do not include travel costs, board and other
living expenses.

We ask Residence Grant recipients to present their research at the
Center's Urban Seminar.

Application Materials:
- Project Description (1000-2000 words)
- CV
- One Letter of Recommendation (only in the case of scholars who have
no doctoral decree or its equivalent)

Please send all application materials as Word or PDF attachments to
the Center's Academic Coordinator dr. Iryna Matsevko, by e-mail (
i.matsevko@lvivcenter.org) no later than 10 March 2015. Please enter
"Residence Grant Application 2015" in the subject header.

The results of the competition will be announced not later than 1
April 2015. The jury is not required to publicly justify its
decisions.

Applications may be submitted in the following languages: Ukrainian,
English, Polish, Russian, German.

http://www.lvivcenter.org/en/



Monday, February 23, 2015

We tact...next week our workshop on postsocialist cities at the Herder - Institute

Herder-Insitut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung
Current Research on Post-Socialist Cities in East Central Europe: Transformations of Public Urban Spaces after 1989 – Agents, Practices and Strategies
Marburg, 3-4 March 2015, Venue: Herder Institute for historical Research on East Central Europe


http://www.herder-institut.de/aktuelles/detailansicht/

Thursday, February 19, 2015

10 PAID PHD POSITIONS IN URBAN STUDIES

10 PAID PHD POSITIONS IN URBAN STUDIES ARE AVAILABLE AT THE GRAN SASSO
SCIENCE INSTITUTE (l'Aquila, Italy)
The position is full-time, for three years, starting in November 2015.

GENERAL INFORMATION: www.gssi.infn.it/phd/

APPLICATION DEADLINE: APRIL 15, 2015 .

APPLICATION. Applicants must fill out the online application form at
www.gssi.infn.it/phd/ and attach the required documents (among them:
Curriculum Vitae, Master Thesis in the original language, a summary of
the Master Thesis in English).

SCHOLARSHIP. The gross amount of a single scholarship is 16160 €/year.
All PhD students will have free accommodation. Meals expenses will be
partly covered with luncheon vouchers and other recreational and
cultural services will be offered.

PHD PROGRAMME IN URBAN STUDIES. For information on the GSSI doctoral
programme in Urban Studies, please visit:
www.gssi.infn.it/index.php/en/doctoral-programme

CONTACTS. For further information:  

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Summer Institute in Urban Studies 2015 - Manchester


The 2015 Summer Institute in Urban Studies (SIUS15) will take place at the University of Manchester from the evening of Sunday 28 June to the evening of Thursday 2 July 2015. It provides an opportunity to investigate cutting edge theoretical and methodological questions, along with a range of associated career development issues, in the field of urban studies.

The Institute will feature contributions from internationally renowned figures in urban studies, from inside and outside of Manchester.

Format
Open to doctoral students (usually post-fieldwork), postdoctoral researchers, and recently appointed faculty/lecturers (normally within three years of first continuing appointment), the Institute comprises an intensive, week-long program of activities.

It is designed to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of the innovatory developments and enduring controversies in urban studies, as well as mentoring and support in the different aspects of the academic labour process, from applying for grants to designing courses, from editing books and special issues of journals to writing book proposals, and from publishing in journals to working at the academic/non-academic interface. It will consist of panels, lectures, reading groups, with participants involved in shaping the final programme.

Speakers
Confirmed special guest speakers include: Roger Keil (York University, Canada); Pauline Lipman (UIC); Simon Marvin (Durham); Jennifer Robinson (UCL).

In addition the event will include multi-disciplinary contributions from academics, researchers and specialists at the University of Manchester and associated with cities@manchester. In addition to those giving plenaries a range of others will be acting as chairs, discussants and panellists during the course of the Institute, with further details to be confirmed.


The University of Manchester

Sunday, February 15, 2015

CfP:The HYBRID CITY 3: Data to the People - University of Athens, Athens, Greece


Conference, workshops and parallel events
17-19 September 2015

Hybrid City is an international biennial event dedicated to exploring the
emergent character of the city and the potential transformative shift of the
urban condition, as a result of ongoing developments in information and
communication technologies (ICTs) and of their integration in the urban
physical context. It aims to promote dialogue and knowledge exchange among
experts drawn from academia, as well as researchers, artists, designers,
advocates, stakeholders and decision makers, actively involved in addressing
questions on the nature of the technologically mediated urban activity and
experience. The second installment of the Hybrid City, that took place in
2013 boasted seven keynote speakers, sixty-eight paper presentations and
diverse parallel events, that were documented in the printed volume of
proceedings.

Hybrid City Conference 2015 in Athens, Greece will consist of three days of
paper presentations, panel discussions, workshops and satellite events,
under the theme "Data to the People". The events are organized by the
University Research Institute of Applied Communication (URIAC), in
collaboration with New Technologies Laboratory, of the Faculty of
Communication and Media Studies, of the University of Athens. The main venue of the conference is the central, historic building of the University of
Athens, while workshops, projects' presentations and parallel events will
take place in other University venues and collaborating centers and
institutions, in the center of Athens

The 2015 theme: Data to the People

So far in the 21st century, we have experienced a multi-faceted crisis
that's challenging the current structural paradigm at a global scale. This
crisis is not only economic; it is also social, political and environmental.
As such, it has a very prominent urban dimension, exposing cities to a
diverse spectrum of distress. Acute natural disasters -earthquakes, fires,
or phenomena related to climate change; floods, severe snowfall, fires etc.
- precarious access to basic resources such as food and water, lack of
opportunities for employment, inefficient social services, e.g. healthcare
and education, along with ever increasing unforeseeable acts of violence -a
complex and manifold phenomenon on its own right- render living in urban
areas vulnerable.

The third Hybrid City Conference seeks to investigate Information
Communication Technologies (ICTs) as means of supporting more Sustainable
Cities and Resilient, Self-Reliant Communities and for empowering Citizens.
By proclaiming "Data to the People" the Hybrid City Conference adopts a
citizen centered approach and seeks to highlight bottom-up projects and
initiatives and processes of technological mediation, which assist
individuals, communities and cities in responding and adapting to
challenges.  The Hybrid City Conference aims to offer insights into the
complexity of factors that weaken the city fabric and affect urban
wellbeing. Furthermore, it aims to investigate the potential of ICTs to
support proactive and collective design towards future cities, focusing on
real needs and away from a smart-everything rhetoric.

Hybrid City cordially invites papers both employing a theoretical and/or a
practical approach that present concepts, case studies, projects, works of
art and best practices promoting the discussion on the theme. Emphasizing
the inherently interdisciplinary nature of technologically mediated urban
activity, we welcome proposals discussing concepts or documenting projects
of urban innovation, that through originality contribute to shaping the
future of the hybrid city and offer useful insights to the hybridization
process of the urban environment.

More:

http://uranus.media.uoa.gr/hc3/ 

Author's Guidelines

Submissions should include:
. Extended abstract of 750 - 1000 words, (including references).
. Biographical statement of no more than 250 words.
. Keywords (at least five).
All abstracts will undergo a double, blind peer review. Selected authors
will be asked to submit a full paper (8 pages), or short paper (4 pages) to
be included in the printed conference proceedings. Further details will be
announced right after the notification of acceptance

Important dates
Deadline for extended abstract submissions:    15/3/15
Response to authors:                    22/4/15
Camera ready full paper submission:            22/6/15

Submission
Please submit your contribution using the online platform.

For any queries or further info please contact us at:
hybridcityathens [at] gmail [dot] com

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Call: Urban Lab+ London Symposium


Global Urban Higher Education: the challenges and potentials of internationalisation
16-17 September 2015 UCL Urban Laboratory, University College London

Deadline: 11 AM GMT, Monday 27 April 2015

In a world that is both rapidly urbanising and globalising, it is widely acknowledged that it is crucial to facilitate urban education that is based on global knowledge and addresses international issues. But it is not always clear how this can be best implemented in practice, especially to ensure urban education plays a constitutive role in addressing issues of urban inequality and global disparities in the production of urban knowledge, and in the application of expertise.

University College London (UCL) will be hosting a major international symposium on global approaches to urban higher education on 16 and 17 September 2015. This event forms part of the Urban Lab+ initiative funded by the European Commission's Erasmus Mundus programme and including eight urban laboratories from across the world.

These units have in common their dedication to multi-/cross-/inter- and trans-disciplinary learning; their emphasis on hands-on collaborative research and education; and their attempts to bring together the disciplinary resources of the academy with the practical spheres of architecture, urban design and planning. Working in partnership the labs have been engaged in conversations focused on how interdisciplinary, practice-oriented and international approaches to built environment education relate to the question of urban social inclusion and exclusion.
 

Summer School in 'Urban Culture in Theory and Action' - Copenhagen University

The Summer School in 'Urban Culture in Theory and Action' (Copenhagen University, Denmark), 10th to 22nd of August 2015 is accepting applications. 

The course focuses on cultural entrepreneurship and social innovation in the city by combining urban theory with hands-on practice. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, workshops and field trips, the student will engage with cultural practitioners and urban theorists from across the world. Bringing academic knowledge of urban life together with empirical know-how generated by practitioners, the program do-it-yourself approach will help students develop their own ideas into project proposals that can inspire entrepreneurship and innovation in their home cities.
The program is tied together with the simultaneous Strøm electronic music festival and embedded within Copenhagen’s alternative spaces, particularly the co-creative community PB43. Using Copenhagen as a laboratory for studying music, art and innovative use or development of urban space, the course also opens up to cross-cultural and global perspectives through presentations of research from Asia and the Middle East.
The summer school is open to applicants at MA-level from across the world. Please refer to http://urban.tors.ku.dk/enrollment/ for more information.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Call for Articles: Urban Imaginaries

Diffractions - Graduate Journal for the Study of Culture

Issue 5 | Urban Imaginaries

Deadline for articles: April 30 2015​

As James Donald put it long ago, “there is no such thing as a city”. As a complex product of both material and imaginary forces, cities are plural entities at the intersection of geographically and historically specific institutions, governmental intervention, global market relations, political participation and creative transgression. In this constitutive diversity, Donald argued, the city “is above all a representation”. Indeed, the city is continuously made and remade through acts of imagination, grounded as much in the materiality of physical space as in the historically constituted ideas about urban life. In the vein of Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities”, cities, as nations, can be conceived as spaces imagined into existence through multiple forms of representations and collective interactions.

Cities have become, more than ever, an outlet of often clashing social energies, where internal tensions and translocal connections intersect to shape but also contest the way urban life is configured and experienced. The popularity of the term “glocalization” - “the simultaneity – the co-presence – of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies” (Robertson, 1992) - suggests that global fluxes have led both to globalizing impulses and to multiple reactions against cultural uniformity through the “production of locality” (Appadurai, 1996). As social spaces where contradictory impulses coexist, cities are the site of political, legal and economic regulation, but also of creativity and dissenting practices.

Several authors have proposed the term “new metropolitanism” (Lenz et al. 2006) as a new concept to account for urban agency with regard to the material, cultural, social, and political processes that inform daily practices in a metropolitan setting. Drawing a divide between the history of modern metropolis - thoroughly scrutinized by the likes of Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel - and contemporary world cities, the term “new metropolitanism” pays attention to the reorganization of present-day urban spaces, driven by cosmopolitan ideals, multicultural imaginaries, global economic transformations, political participation and creative vitality. At the same time, the term can be an analytic resource to tackle the conflicting forces at play in contemporary cities, seen as sites of emancipatory fantasies and associative imagination, but also of control, coercion and exclusion.

Rather than unified forms then, cities are heterogenous spaces where “urban cultures of difference” (ibid, 19) come into contact, where conflict and struggle constitute experience and drive change (Brantz et al, 2014). This issue wishes therefore to examine the ways in which cultural and political imagination have shaped and contested the configuration and experience of historical and present-day urban space.

Topics may include but are not restricted to the following:

- Metropolitanism and urban cultures of difference

- Globalization, translocality and placemaking

- Austerity urbanism and post-industrial cities

- Dynamics of creativity and gentrification

- The right to the city: Urban citizenship and participatory culture

- Boundaries, centres and peripheries

- Ghost cities

- Cities and colonial imagination

- Experiencing the city: tourism and authenticity

- City branding

- Entrepreneurial and smart cities

- Surveillance and Public Space

- Cities as affective spaces

- Urban imagination in literature and the arts

We look forward to receiving full articles of no more than 20 A4 pages (not including bibliography) and a short bio of about 150 words by April 30 2015 at the following address: submissions@diffractions.net<mailto:submissions@diffractions.net>.

Diffractions welcomes articles written in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Please follow the journal’s submission guidelines at http://www.diffractions.net/submission-guidelines.

DIFFRACTIONS also accepts book reviews that may not be related to the issue’s topic. If you wish to write a book review, please contact us at reviews@diffractions.net<mailto:reviews@diffractions.net>.

Diffractions is the online, open access and peer-reviewed journal of the doctoral program in Culture Studies hosted by the Lisbon Consortium and the Catholic University of Portugal. Find us online at www.diffractions.net<http://www.diffractions.net/>.

Global Power City Index 2014....Hmmm.....


Top10 Cities in Overall Ranking 


The Global Power City Index (GPCI) evaluates and ranks the major cities of the world according to their “magnetism,” i.e. their comprehensive power which allows them to attract creative individuals and business enterprises from every continent and to mobilize their assets in securing economic, social and environmental development. 

http://www.mori-m-foundation.or.jp/gpci/index_e.html

The Mori Memorial Foundation

ISSC Project: Book of Blogs of Sustainable Urbanisation

Since 2013, the International Social Science Council (ISSC) has hosted two seminars for early career researchers on the topic of sustainable urbanisation and the transitions to living in urban contexts. There is a wealth of diverse and important social science research being carried out within the ISSC networks and beyond. This project aims to bring our work together quickly in an accessible format to showcase the latest social science research and thinking on sustainable urbanisation.
The project, entitled “Dialogues of sustainable urbanisation: Social science research and transitions to urban contexts” aims to create a book of blogs — which is a collection of short blog posts crowdsourced by, and from, our networks of social scientists working on sustainable urbanisation issues. The book will be self-published as an e-book.
Why a book of blogs?
This contemporary format is enjoying great success. In 2014, the NSMNSS (New Social Media, New Social Science) network published an e-book Social media in social research: Blogs on Blurring the Boundaries curated by Kandy Woodfield. The NSMNSS e-book was inspired by Humane Resourced, a book of blogs from business and human resource professionals curated by David DeSouza in 2013. We aim to replicate the success of these two books to spread the word about sustainable urbanisation within the social sciences.
The idea is to find out about each other, reach new audiences, learn from one another, curate our ideas, and disseminate our research activities. To reflect the blog format, each contribution should be no longer than 1000 words. When added together, we will have a fascinating and diverse collection of contemporary social science work on sustainable urbanisation.
Our aim is for 50 contributors but the more voices the better. You can submit more than one piece and co-authored posts are also welcome. Your post might be a short article previously published elsewhere (subject to copyright of course) or a summary of a recent journal article. It could be a position piece or a personal reflection on an urban context or issue that is important to you. All contributions are welcome! If you are interested in contributing to the ISSC book of blogs, please complete your details here. We will add you to our mail list to update on progress and details for how to submit your work.
Our aim is to publish in Summer 2015 — urbanisation is fast, so are we!
If you have any questions or queries, please contact Dr Jenna Condie, (World Social Science Fellow Sustainable Urbanisation 2014) E: j.m.condie@gmail.com T: @jennacondie
 kassem mounhem Flickr digital-book

Thursday, February 5, 2015

FYI:LSE Cities Vacancy: Researcher or Research Officer - New Urban Governance project


Deadline: 17.30, Friday 6 Febrary 2015
 
LSE Cities is seeking a Researcher or Research Officer for its project on New Urban Governance: Urban complexity and institutional capacities of cities. This project is part of LSE Cities’ urban governance research strand and is co-funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The Researcher/Research Officer will report to Dr Nuno Ferreira da Cruz who is coordinating this project. The successful candidate will play an important role in expanding LSE Cities’ research on governing cities and generating internationally-recognized research on urban governance compatible with the LSE’s multi-disciplinary social science environment.

The project’s focus refers to currently emerging governance regimes in cities triggered by a historic conjuncture of the ongoing devolution of decision making powers to cities on the one hand and unprecedented urban challenges on the other. This initiative envisions examining multiple aspects of municipal planning, management, and governance. At its heart is the realisation that cities have to increasingly rely on advanced institutional capacities, democratic governance and effective management to address ever more complex and interrelated economic, social and environmental challenges while tapping into the potential benefits of new technological opportunities.

Candidates for Researcher level will have an MSc in Public Policy/Management, Political Science or a related discipline and substantial research experience relevant to the New Urban Governance project.

Candidates for Research Officer level will have a PhD in Public Policy/Management, Political Science or a related discipline.

Please see the Job Description and Person Specifications for further details, and the job advert on how to apply.

Links:
Job description
Person specification