European Association for Urban History (EAUH)
11th International Conference on Urban History
"Cities and Societies in Comparative Perspective"
Main Session (M39)

Urban History Politics: Re-negotiating Local Pasts in the Face of 20th Century Turning Points

The 20th century witnessed major political and economic ruptures (such as 1918, 1945, the 1970s, 1989) with sudden and long-lasting effects on the development of cities throughout Europe and beyond. These ruptures challenged the local political status quo, undermined the traditional economic bases of cities and frequently changed the demography of urban communities. Not least conspicuously, in the light of a new era with new imperatives and expectations, there were major attempts to re-interpret urban history and memory.

The aim of this session is to look more specifically at the politics of urban history in the aftermath of "sea changes", of caesuras which were perceived as such even at the time or briefly afterwards. Which episodes of history were highlighted and which were ignored or marginalized under the new conditions? What kind of continuities and discontinuities were established between the present and the past? How were the relations between urban past and national past conceived?

While most research so far has focused on national narratives, this session will discuss possible patterns of "new histories" on the urban level, comparing experiences from all over Europe and beyond. The "short 20th century" (1914/18-1989/91), with its numerous instances of massive ideological shifts, is proposed as a time frame for assessing the role and potential of representations of city history. How were these negotiated, contested, and renegotiated with regard to the respective city as a whole, to districts and neighbourhoods or in the context of local organizations? How did the different histories converge, clash and struggle with each other? And how much effort was put into creating a "shared history" for the city?

Session organisers
Marjaana Niemi (University of Tampere, Finland)
Marc Schalenberg (TU Berlin, Germany)
Tanja Vahtikari (University of Tampere, Finland)

Deadline: 1st October 2011

Please submit abstracts (max. 500 words) through the conference website: http://www.eauh2012.com/sessions/call-for-paper-proposals/

If you have questions or require additional information, please contact Marjaana Niemi (marjaana.niemi@uta.fi) or Marc Schalenberg (marc.schalenberg@metropolitanstudies.de).