The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies invites the submission of paper proposals for its cross-disciplinary symposium on urban symbolic landscapes. The symposium targets, inter alia, scholars in linguistics, geography, history, political science, anthropology, and sociology. The event is co-organised with the Department of Politics and Economic Studies and the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Helsinki.
In recent years, the entanglements of power, language and space have become increasingly popular topics in the academia. The symposium aims to contribute to the recently burgeoned cross-disciplinary research on the symbolic and linguistic aspects of urban spaces and processes. In particular, institutional strategies, marketing aspirations and everyday meanings associated with past and contemporary cities will be addressed at the symposium in ways that are attuned to the operation of various forms of power.
We invite presentations that deal particularly with the following three foci:
- Spaces of/for Linguistic Identities
- Power, Space and Memory
- Urban Symbols and Marketing
These topics can be approached from a variety of perspectives. The symposium will host three thematic sessions. In them, attention will be paid to the above dimensions of power, language and memory in the symbolic construction of cities and urban places.
If you would like to present a paper at the symposium, please send your abstract (max. 300 words) to urbanlandscapes-2011@helsinki.fi by 17 January 2011. Abstracts will be reviewed by the symposium's scientific committee. You will be notified by 1 February 2011 whether your paper has been accepted. By March 2011, we will also send you more detailed information on the symposium's program and practical arrangements. The conference will begin on 3 May at 2pm with one of the keynote speeches and end by 1pm on 5 May.
The symposium language is English.
Invited keynote speakers:
- Maoz Azaryahu from the University of Haifa, Israel
- Barbara Johnstone from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, US / Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
Prof. Azaryahu's research includes the geographies of national myths and public memory in different national settings, landscapes of popular culture, and the cultural history of places and landscapes. In particular, his studies on street names as political symbols have played a key role in bringing to the forefront more critical analyses of naming and language in the disciplines of geography and history.
Prof. Johnstone is a sociolinguist, whose research record covers a wide-ranging spectrum of topics relevant to the symposium, from the relationship of language and space, discourse analytic methods and the role of the individual in language and linguistic theory to the rhetorical construction of place and local identities through discourses about local speech.
The symposium fee is 80 euros. It includes a conference lunch, a banquet reception and refreshments during coffee breaks.
nCoordinator and contact person:
- Jani Vuolteenaho, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, email: jani.vuolteenaho[at]helsinki.fi
Other members of the organising committee:
- Prof. Jan-Ola Östman (Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki)
- Dr. Emilia Palonen (Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki)
- Dr. Johanna Vaattovaara (Language Centre & Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki)