City: Everydayness, Identity, Aesthetics

City: Everydayness, Identity, Aesthetics

28-29 October 2022

University of Potsdam and online

At this conference, we will discuss and outline the phenomenon of the city from a variety of standpoints. The city is anchored in numerous disciplines including geography, sociology, and cultural studies. Philosophical and anthropological methods are able to open up a specific view of urban constellations and social structures, but the possibilities for philosophical-anthropological urban investigations have so far remained undeveloped or attracted less attention. Due to the numerous phenomena and events in the city and the various philosophical approaches that can describe or investigate them, it is also complicated to find a common denominator for such investigations. We organize this conference with an aim to generate a more systematic discussion of the city with its specific levels and involved parties.

The main goal is: to collect thoughts and views on three levels of urban development and to reformulate the questions that arise there. The three levels from which we will study the city at the conference are:

• Everydayness: Daily events of human life in the city, the possibilities of their investigations, and their heuristic potential. Urban hermeneutics of everyday life.

• Identity: The way in which one identifies with a specific city and feels at home. What is it like to live in the city and feel at home? Is there a specific memory of the city? How does urban identity spread spatially?

• Aesthetics: How to feel and experience the city? How can urban events affect us? How do specific experiences in and of the city work?

In order to outline these three levels of urban development and to come to fruitful results, the conference will be interdisciplinary.

Therefore, we warmly invite everyone who sees their previous or future projects related to the above-mentioned topics to participate in the conference “City: Everydayness, Identity, Aesthetics”.

In order to be able to plan the conference optimally and to take your wishes and preferences into account, we ask you to send us the following information by 25 September 2022:

• Title and brief summary of the presentation (150-200 words)

• Short biography (10 lines, with the following information: institution, academic function, research areas, most relevant publications)

• Modality of participation (in person or online)

The languages of the conference are English and German.

Each talk should last around 20 minutes to allow for discussion.

Organizers: Kateryna Demerza and Logi Gunnarsson

Please submit your abstracts to: [email protected]