[Bilimsel Haber] call for applications: Summer academy 'Conflict and Mobility in the City' 25.8.-5.9.2014 in Rabat

[Gonul Pultar]

From: Georges Khalil <gk at trafo-berlin.de>


INTERNATIONAL SUMMER ACADEMY
FOR DOCTORAL AND POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

In the framework of the research program “Europe in the Middle East – 
the Middle East in Europe” (EUME) the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale 
Studien, the Max Weber Stiftung – German Humanities Institutes Abroad, 
and the  École de Gouvernance et d'Économie in Rabat invite scholars 
from the fields of Comparative Literature, Cultural Anthropology, Middle 
East Studies, Political Science, History, Geography, Urban Studies and 
Sociology to apply for an international Summer Academy that will be 
convened from 25.8. – 5.9. 2014 at the École de Gouvernance et 
d'Économie (EGE) in Rabat on the theme

CONFLICT AND MOBILITY IN THE CITY:
URBAN SPACE, YOUTH AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS

(Closing date: 31 March 2014)

The Summer Academy is chaired by a group of scholars that includes Fadma 
Ait Mous (EGE, Rabat), Michael Allan (University of Oregon), Baudoin 
Dupret and Zakaria Rhani (both Centre Jacques Berque, Rabat), Hakan 
Ergul (Hacettepe Universitesi, Ankara), Ulrike Freitag and Nora Lafi 
(both Zentrum Moderner Orient/ZMO, Berlin), Rachid Ouaissa and 
Friederike Pannewick (both from the Center for Near and Middle Eastern 
Studies/CNMS, Philipps-University Marburg). It is held in cooperation 
with the Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat, the Université Mohammed VI 
Polytechnique in Benguerir, the CNMS, the research network 
“Re-Configurations: History, Memory and Transformation Processes” of 
Philipps University Marburg.

24 doctoral and postdoctoral scholars from different countries and 
academic backgrounds will be given the opportunity to present and 
discuss their current research in an international and 
multi-disciplinary context. Intellectuals, writers and scholars from 
Morocco will also participate in the discussions and events of the 
Summer Academy. The Summer Academy is designed to support scholarly 
networks and contribute to closer ties among research activities in and 
outside Europe and the Middle East. In order to promote intensive debate 
and encourage new perspectives, the Summer Academy is structured around 
four main elements: presentations of individual research projects in 
small groups, working group sessions for the participants, general 
lectures, and panel discussions open to a wider public.

The uprisings in the Arab world both challenge traditional paradigms for 
understanding culture and politics and raise new sets of questions. 
While some urban spaces such as Tahrir Square, Taksim Gezi Park, and 
Pearl Roundabout have acquired almost global iconic status, how might we 
understand that it was self-immolation in a public space and graffiti on 
walls in provincial towns that marked the beginnings of the Tunisian and 
Syrian uprisings respectively? In what ways do cultural forms inflect 
the political imaginary in these contested urban spaces? Is it possible 
to trace echoes of this political vocabulary in novels, art, poetry, 
songs and films of the last decades? How might we understand public 
space not solely as stages of protest and politics, but also of everyday 
life? The city serves as a site of negotiation between cosmopolitan 
consumerism and local traditions, but what is its role as a site for 
experimental living and utopias? The city is an urban and social 
structure that facilitates the imagination and proliferation of 
citizenship and social mobility. Its gated communities, stalled avenues 
of mobility, the dreams and nightmares of migration are just as 
prevalent as alternative forms of solidarity and mechanisms of control 
and survival.

Our Summer Academy aims to explore these questions across time and place 
with attention to the differing contours and uses of urban space. We 
hope to draw together scholars who consider cities in the Middle East 
and North Africa as well as in neighbouring regions or countries (such 
as Spain, Greece, Turkey and Iran). We also hope to benefit from a 
multitude of disciplinary perspectives that shed light on the different 
dynamics of urbanism and protest:

•             Specialists in Architecture, Urban Planning and Human 
Geography may contribute to a clearer view of how the different forms of 
cities, questions of access and physical mobility impact forms of 
protest in these sites. How have developments in urban design impacted 
or facilitated forms of protest in the 21st century?

•             Historians might consider historical contestations over 
public spaces (including aspects of their control) and the current trend 
of gated or walled communities. What historical precedent exists for the 
types of mass mobilization seen in the last few years, and what 
challenge does the uprisings pose to national historical narratives? How 
do cities relate to or complicate national historiography?

•             Social scientists understand the political economy of 
urban development, the legal anthropology of urban tenure, as much as 
the urban governance or economy itself and the social profiles of people 
laying claim to public space. We might want to ask about the roles of 
changing demographics, of gender, of the youth, or of migrants, both 
groups who might conceive of the city as offering spaces of advancement, 
development, entertainment, and social change, as well as a space of 
frustration.

•             Scholars from the humanities and the social sciences might 
explore daily and ordinary usages related to urban spaces, times, 
activities, professions, mobility, housing, business, etc. How do people 
not only conceive of the city but also inhabit it, develop specific 
types of dealing with it, coordinate with one another, produce and play 
with local norms, contribute to a sense of belonging or exclusion, 
develop specific competences, and participate in the production of local 
orders.

•             Scholars in literature and the arts might explore 
aesthetic forms reflecting urban space and mobility in the broadest 
sense – not only in literature, but also new media, music, film, 
performance, fashion and street art. How have these aesthetic forms 
facilitated the imagining of forms of political practice and an urban 
public sphere? And how should we conceive the place of literature and 
the arts in urban space and processes of social and political 
transformations from the early 20th until the early 21st century?

The Summer Academy aims to bring these very different approaches 
together through the focus on urban spaces and the different actors 
involved with these spaces. Comparisons from a historical perspective 
are most welcome.

CONDITIONS OF APPLICATION AND PROCEDURE

Participants receive a stipend covering travel and accommodation. The 
program targets doctoral and postdoctoral researchers of Comparative 
Literature, Cultural Anthropology, Middle East Studies, Political 
Science, History, Geography, Urban Studies and Sociology, who wish to 
present their ongoing projects in a comparative perspective in relation 
to the questions raised above. The researchers' work should be clearly 
relevant to the themes of the Summer Academy. While the focus of the 
Summer Academy will be the Arab world, comparative perspectives on the 
relation of aesthetics and politics from other regions are welcome, 
transregional comparative approaches being especially encouraged. The 
working language is English. The application should likewise be in 
English and consist of

–             a curriculum vitae
–             a three- to five-page outline of the project the applicant 
is currently working on, with a brief summary thereof,
–             the names of two university faculty members who can serve 
as referees (no letters of recommendation required)

SENT BY EMAIL as ONE PDF FILE or in ONE WORD DOCUMENT.

The application should be submitted in English and should be received by 
March 31, addressed to:

eume at trafo-berlin.de
attn: Georges Khalil
Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe
c/o Forum Transregionale Studien
Wallotstrasse 14, D-14193 Berlin

The Summer Academy is conducted within the framework of “Europe in the 
Middle East – the Middle East in Europe” (EUME), a research program at 
the Forum Transregionale Studien. EUME seeks to rethink key concepts and 
premises that link and divide Europe and the Middle East. EUME conducts 
this Summer Academy in cooperation with the Marburg initiative that, 
within the research network “Re-Configurations. History, Remembrance and 
Transformation Processes in the Middle East and North Africa”, analyses 
the current transformations in the region through the combined 
perspectives of the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences.

The Summer Academy is part of the strategic cooperation between the 
Forum Transregionale Studien and the Max Weber Foundation – German 
Humanities Institutes Abroad. It is supported by the German Federal 
Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und 
Forschung, BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien is a research organization 
that promotes the internationalization of research in the humanities and 
social sciences.  It is dedicated to a research agenda that 
systematically links disciplinary approaches and the expertise of area 
studies, by focusing on entanglements and interactions across national, 
cultural or regional borders.

For more information please see:

www.eume-berlin.de
www.forum-transregionale-studien.de
www.maxweberstiftung.de
www.egerabat.com
www.uni-marburg.de/cnms/forschung/re-konfigurationen


Please find the announcement as a PDF here: 
http://www.eume-berlin.de/nc/de/aktuelles.html

Georges Khalil

Bitte beachten Sie die neue Adresse und Telefonnummer!
Please note the new address and telephone number!

Forum Transregionale Studien
Wallotstraße 14, 14193 Berlin
T +49 (0)30 89 001-420
F +49 (0)30 89 001-440
georges.khalil at trafo-berlin.de

www.forum-transregionale-studien.de<http://www.forum-transregionale-studien.de/>
www.wiko-berlin.de<http://www.wiko-berlin.de/>





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