In this workshop, scholars from different disciplines (literature studies, ecofeminism, aesthetics and urban studies) discuss the complex phenomenon of the reciprocal influence between individuals and urban culture and disciplining forces in the very specific case of secularisation. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the identity of subjectivities is conditioned and/or formed by the urban in a broad sense, on the other, the intellectual and material products of these subjectivities exert a significant influence in the process of formation and changing of urban dynamics, and the moral shared values and institutions of society.
Program:
10AM: Inge Arteel (VUB), "Metropolen der Moderne"
In this talk I analyse the urban context of the capital cities of Berlin and Vienna and other major cities such as Munich in its relation to the developments of literature in the period 1880-1920. Literary developments such as naturalism, symbolism, expressionism and dadaism are considered, as is the literature of the "Wiener Moderne". The literary texts are read in their relationship with scientific discourses such as darwinism, psychoanalysis and language philosophy, and societal currents such as "Reformpädagogik" and feminism.
11:15AM: Nadja Furlan (Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies, ZR-Slovenia), “The urban and the rural, migration and inter religious encounters: an ecofeminist approach”.
12:30PM-1:30PM Lunch Break
1:30PM: Nélio Conceiçâo (Nova Universidade Lisboa), "The impact of destructive events and gestures in the construction of the modern urban experience"
Through the analysis of three different cases (1. the Lisbon earthquake in 1755; 2. Haussmann’s intervention in Paris throughout the 19th century; 3. the “destruction” of some traditional values by modern architecture), my presentation aims to reflect on the impact of these destructive events and gestures on the constitution of a modern urban experience which tends to become secularized. This means delving into the dialectical tension between destruction and construction as one of the keys to understanding modern cities and the often ambivalent and complex experiences they foster.
2:45PM: Nuno Fonseca (Nova Universidade Lisboa), "Aesthetic urban experience in secularised cities"
Secularization is a process that is traditionally paralleled with the processes of modernization and urbanization. I want to suggest that another process, or to be more precise, a set of processes that we may call aestheticization can also be related to the previous processes and in a significant - even if partial, complex and problematic - way to secularization in contemporary cities. My suggestion is fostered on the cultural and spiritual tension between a disenchanted experience of the world opened up by the aforementioned processes of modernization and secularization and the attempts at re-enchanting the modern and urban experience of the world through art and other modalities of contemporary aesthetic experience. The manifestations of these processes are more evident in the social and cultural practices of urbanites but can eventually have an impact on the physical, structural and sensorial aspects of cities as built and dynamic environments.
This workshop is an initiative financed by the LW-Eutopia Call 2.0. and the SSAB.
No fees, but registration is mandatory (limited seats). Mail to: Emiliano.acosta@vub.be