CFP Cities of the Future (9/30/2015; NeMLA Hartford, CT 3/17-20/2016)

Cities of the Future - NeMLA Conference 2016 - Hartford, CT
full name / name of organization: Matthew Lambert / Carnegie Mellon University
contact email: mmlamber@andrew.cmu.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63361

This panel seeks to explore representations of futuristic cities from all periods in American literature, film, and other cultural mediums. In particular, it seeks papers responding to one or more of the following questions: In what ways have American writers and filmmakers envisioned future urban landscapes? In what ways have these visions changed over the course of American history and why? How have urban theorists, critics, and reformers as well as particular ideologies (Christian, technocratic, socialist, libertarian, environmentalist, etc.) shaped them? In what ways do the past and present (or the erasure of the past and/or present) affect their depictions? What different cultural modes (the utopian, dystopian, pastoral, etc.) do writers, filmmakers, painters, etc. use to depict future cities and how do they combine these modes to explore social tensions and/or tensions within the cultural modes themselves? How do American writers depict future cities in ways that are different from other cultures? And how does using different cultural mediums change the way artists depict future cities?

Ultimately, I hope papers in this panel will help trace the function and development of futuristic cities in American culture, drawing and building upon work on urban spaces by figures like Mike Davis, David Harvey, and Fredric others. I hope to receive papers from different potentially representative time periods, including our own, that might allow us to create a trajectory from the earliest renditions of future cities to more contemporary ones. Doing so, I think, will help us better understand the general need in American culture to imagine and depict future cities as well as the various intents behind their designs and functions. It will also help us critique the problems and omissions in past and present depictions, perhaps pointing the way towards envisioning (and creating) more inclusive, just, and environmentally safe cities.

NeMLA's 2016 Conference is in Hartford, CT. and runs from March 17th to March 20th. All proposals should be submitted through the NeMLA's online submission page (https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/submit.html) by September 30th, 2015. Notification for acceptance will be made by October 15th. Please contact me by email (mmlamber@andrew.cmu.edu) if you have any questions.


By web submission at 08/09/2015 - 17:54