CPCL Vol. 7, no 2. Call for Papers. Historical City and Urban Aesthetics: Conceptual Frameworks and Public Spaces

2024-09-04

CPCL Vol. 7, no 2. Call for Papers

Historical City and Urban Aesthetics: Conceptual Frameworks and Public Spaces

The European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes, Vol. 7, no. 2.

Edited by Francesco Di Maio, Claudia Nigrelli.

Download a PDF version of this call.

This call for papers aims to explore the relationship between the historical city and urban aesthetics. Aesthetics offer a unique lens through which to examine the critical and often conflictual bond between theoretical and political reflections on the city, bridging conceptual frameworks and public spaces.

In urban studies, the concept of the ‘historical city’ allows us to consider urban agglomerations in their historical, temporal, and aesthetic dimensions. This definition does not seek to attribute positive value to a part of the city that is considered historic and characterized by an exclusive relationship with tradition, such as the classical ‘historic center’ where a ‘first’ city is opposed to the peripheral ‘second’ city. Instead, extending the historical dimension to urbanity as a whole enables us to understand urban development in all its internal stratification and differentiation over time.

Theoretical explorations of the city in its broader historical context have long been advanced by authors such as G. Simmel, W. Benjamin, and S. Kracauer. They reflected on the early evolutions of urban life in its metropolitan form, i.e. the large or major city or Groβstadt. Aesthetics played a crucial role in these investigations, as evidenced in the artistic production of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which highlighted the metropolitan experience as a privileged object. Industrial production transforms cities, societies, and perceptions, creating new infrastructures, public spaces, and political-economic arrangements. Urban life then manifests itself in different forms that require analysis in their physical and social dimensions, individual and collective experiences, and in relation to the technologies, politics, and imaginaries that mediate these experiences.

In Western debates about the city, significant attention has been given to the concept of the ‘public sphere,’ ‘public space,’ or ‘publicity’ (Öffentlichkeit), where the physical and material dimensions of the public intersect with its political and symbolic dimensions. The twentieth-century notion of spatial organization as a result of power dynamics remains relevant for understanding neoliberal cities and their strategies of inclusion and exclusion of inhabitants. This includes the integration of moral and aesthetic issues influenced by economic factors and the role of embodied subjectivities in public spaces, which have become crucial for reclaiming the right to the city and challenging the existing political order through actions and demonstrations.

This CPCL call therefore aims to address aesthetic instances in the historical city, both within its conceptual frameworks and in relation to public spaces. Possible themes for consideration include:

  • Classical paradigms dealing with the historical city and/or public spaces;
  • The relationship between bodies and cities;
  • Theories of space in relation to historical cities and/or public spaces;
  • Epistemologies of the city and/or public spaces;
  • The interplay of aesthetics, the historical city, and/or public spaces, such as “rule by aesthetics” (Ghertner), “space, politics and aesthetics” (Dikeç), “aesthetic perception of urban environments” (Virmani), and “new urban aesthetics” and “digital experiences of urban change” (Montserrat Degen, Rose);
  • The impact of technologies on historical cities and/or public spaces;
  • Urban policies affecting historical cities and/or public spaces;
  • The right to the city through intersectional theories and practices (e.g., transfeminist, non-human, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-speciesist, ecologist, subalternist, postcolonial, neurodivergent, etc.);
  • The ‘apocalyptic’ dimension of sociology in the context of the historical city (e.g., J. Baudrillard, P. Virilio);
  • The multiplicity of worldviews and temporal stratifications in the historical city;
  • The relationship between historical cities and/or public spaces and the arts.

CPCL accepts full papers, written in English, with a maximum of 6,000 words, including footnotes and bibliography.

Manuscripts should be submitted online at cpcl.unibo.it

CPCL does not accept e-mail submissions.

For more information, consult our focus and scope and author guidelines.

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CPCL Vol. 7, no. 2   Timeline

July 2024                  Launch of Call

March 2025              Deadline for paper submission