Anglo American conference of historians 2009: Cities
Institute of Historical Research, 2 - 3 July 2009
The Swiss Re Tower, St Mary Axe, London
Contents
- Description
- Publishers
- Prothero lecture
- Programme
- Student opportunities
- Local Restaurants and Accommodation
- Office contact
- Senate House map
Description
For 10,000 years cities have shaped the affairs of mankind. Now, more than half of the world's population is urban, dwelling in settlements that we identify as 'city' or 'town', some of them so extensive and so complex that they seem to transcend traditional notions of urban organisation and form.
Anglo-American Conference 2009 poster
While the impact of cities has grown rapidly in recent times, their essential nature has been apparent from the beginning. Cities mark the transition from nomadic to settled society and drive the development of agriculture and ideas of the rural, as well the exploitation of water, minerals and other natural resources. As both organising forces and habitats, cities are at least as important for animals as for humans. They rest on networks of contracts that regulate the exchange of goods and services and the management of risk, yet the instabilities that characterised pre-urban societies remain with us today, and in many new forms.
Cities facilitate the aggregation of wealth and power and the emergence of distinctive religions, beliefs, cultural behaviour, social structures and institutions. They evolve laws and governmental systems to deal with the particular problems of urban life, including those arising from disorder and disease. As sites of inquiry and information exchange they promote knowledge and understanding of the wider world.
Within the city, the key public locations are those of the market, popular assembly, power, authority, religion and defence, while the occupation of spaces for work, residence and recreation is exceptionally dense. In meeting these and other needs, cities promote innovation in building and architecture, often so as to fulfil the ambitions of the powerful. City plans and forms can also bear symbolic meaning and express ideas of social, political, economic or cosmological order. Such environments are often oppressive or corrupting, yet many cities also offer the individual a freedom of thought and expression not found elsewhere.
'Londinum Feracissimi Angliae Regni Metropolis' Source: The Hebrew University of JerusalemCities' relations with subordinate settlements and with other
cities, along with their need to control territory and communications,
give them a central role in the formation of states and empires, and
now in the process of globalisation. At the same time, they absorb and
express the characteristics of the regions in which they lie and of
more distant places with which they have contact. With migration and
trade they become places where languages and cultures co-exist,
intermingle or merge.
The conference will deal with cities throughout the world, with papers examining the networks of cities and their role in cultural formation, the relations between cities, territories and larger political units, the ideologies and cosmologies of the city and what distinguishes the city or town from other forms of settlement or ways of life.
Many of these topics are touched on in general writing on cities, but it is remarkable how rarely they are subject to serious historical analysis. This raises questions for our understanding of cities now, when so much of their past as invoked in relation to the present is misunderstood. As so many of us mass together in cities, are we at a turning point in our identity as humans? Or does past experience of cities offer some clues for the future, whether one of hope or of disaster?
Publishers at the 2009 Anglo-American Conference
The following publishers will be exhibiting, or promoting new publications, at the 2009 Anglo-American Conference of Historians:
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We are proud to announce that Adam Matthew Digital will be exhibiting with us once again this year. They are also kindly sponsoring the evening reception for delegates, as well as one of the featured sessions. | |
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Royal Historical Society Prothero lecture
1 July 2009
This year’s Prothero lecture will be delivered by Professor Michael Bentley (University of St Andrews), on ’The Age of Prothero: British Historiography in the long fin-de-siècle, 1870-1920’.
The lecture takes place at 5.30pm in Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1 (Campus map) at UCL and all are welcome.
Please RSVP to Sue Carr to reserve your place.
Visit the Royal Historical Society website.
The Senate House, University of London
Programme committee
- Chair: Dr Matthew Davies (Centre for Metropolitan History, IHR) ()
- Dr Richard Dennis (University College, London)
- Dr James Moore (Centre for Metropolitan History, IHR)
- Dr Katia Pizzi (Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study)
- Professor Richard Roberts (Centre for Contemporary British History, IHR)
- Professor Rosemary Sweet (Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester)
- Dr Alan Thacker (Centre for Local History, IHR)
Conference office contact
Senate House map
click map for high resolution version