The third conference on Baltic urban history invites presenters from different disciplines to discuss urban cultures. During recent decades, a significant change occurred in our understanding of the multicultural character of Baltic cities. Even in the Baltics, the concept of a city as a space for interaction of cultural diversities can hardly cause surprise today. Still, there is a question as to whether the notion of that multiculturalism may be useful explaining the very phenomenon of an urban space, urbanity, and urbanisation. Contributing to the problematisation of these concepts, the conference organizers have deliberately chosen a no less ambiguous term of “urban cultures” (often identified with “urbanity”) whose different definitions were developed by archaeologists, sociologists, cultural anthropologists, historians, and researchers on architecture and urbanism. By combining the variety of perspectives on the same phenomenon into a single topic of the conference, we hope to encourage some points of contact between the different disciplines. Therefore, the third conference on the history of Baltic cities welcomes the submission of proposals which represent diverse approaches to the concept of “urban cultures”. Some key issues for potential papers representing the above-mentioned diversity include:
- Urban lifestyles, approached through the research into material artifacts, technologies, and infrastructures;
- The often overlapping and sometimes conflicting relations between social groups with distinctive behavioral patterns inside the city, and the social relations between the urban centre and suburban, rural, and/or exurban areas;
- The systems of meanings circulating in urban communication, their expression in ideas, ways of thinking, symbols, practices, and behavioral patterns; the interaction of these systems of meanings;
- The activities of urban communities in strengthening their political, legal, and/or economic position; various issues of communal (self)organisation associated with this position;
- The impact of design, aesthetics, space planning, and functional relations between different objects in urban space on urban lifestyle.
The chronological limits of the conference are restricted to the period from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
By inviting representatives of different disciplines with diverse approaches, we hope that the conference will turn into a forum for discussion of Baltic cities that will provide a common ground for the understanding of urban cultures.

The announced conference aims to enhance the cooperation of scholars active in the related fields of research. The first conference took place in Riga in 2012, the second in Tallinn in 2015.
The conference is jointly organised by the Institute of Baltic Region History and Archaeology of Klaipėda University (Lithuania), the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History of Tallinn University (Estonia), the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the University of Latvia (Riga), and the Herder Institute in Marburg (Germany).
The working languages of the conference will be English and German.
The organisers will cover the accommodation costs for the invited participants (2 nights). A small number of travel grants will be also available.
Please submit your paper proposals and direct any questions to: safronovas@gmail.com. Proposals should include the full title, a brief abstract (approx. 300 words), and a short biographical note.
The deadline for submitting proposals is May 31, 2017. We will inform the invited participants in July 2017.