Annual Conference FRAMING THE CITY Call for Papers and PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION

The Call for Papers for the CRESC Annual conference, which will take place from the 6^th to the 9^th of September

The deadline to submit panel and individual proposals for this is the end of April.

The CRESC annual conference 2011 takes the rubric of 'framing' to scrutinise the processes by which cities are conceptualised, realised, lived, ordered and depicted, disrupted, changed and contested. More than half of humanity now lives in urban areas and city processes affect the whole globe. The rates of growth, decay and transformation; the diversity, complexity and flows of population and activities, as well as the scale of problems and possibilities posed by city life are breathtaking. This conference seeks to bring together contemporary approaches to the descriptive and analytical challenges of thinking through processes of change in urban and city contexts. The conference takes the following themes as inspiration for a call for papers with confirmed plenary speakers as shown:

• CITY MATERIALITIES : (city objects, plans, designs, discourse, built environments, assemblages, archaeology, urban morphology, infrastructure, post-industrial regeneration, economies, mega events, spatiality …) Plenary speakers: Professor Nikos Salingaros (University of Texas at San Antonio) and Dr Albena Yaneva (University of Manchester)


• CITY AFFECT:(the experiential, the senses, the auditory, passions, hopes, fears, violence, the imaginary, creative writing and literature …) Plenary speakers: Iain Sinclair and Professor Alistair Bonnett (University of Newcastle)


• CITY ENVIRONMENTS: (sustainability, living and working environments, ecologies, city geographies, nature/culture, eco-cities …) Plenary speakers: Professor Maria Kaika (University of Manchester) and Professor Alan Simpson (Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow)


• SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INEQUALITIES IN THE CITY : (social and cultural capital, governance, territorial dimensions of participation, contested spaces of belonging, social movements, underground resistance, critical urbanism) Plenary speakers: Professor Rosenlund Lennart (University of Stavanger, Norway) and Professor Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin)


• MEDIATING THE CITY:(creative practices, cultural industries, urban identity, art, street art, broadcasting, music, advertising, dance, film, print and visual representation …) Plenary Speaker: Nick Couldry (Goldsmiths College, University of London)


• CITY MIGRATION, TRANS-NATIONALITY AND BORDERS: (mobility, flows, boundaries, identities, difference and belonging, states, nations, settlements and borders) Plenary Speakers: Dr Sabine Hess (Institute for European Ethnology) and Dr. Jan Rath (University of Amsterdam)

Please submit either

a) proposal for individual papers, or

(b) panel proposal including 3 papers

by the end of April 2011 using the proposal forms online. Abstracts should not be more than 250 words.

The proposal forms should be sent to CRESC Conference Administration, at the following address: 178 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8985 / or via Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8985 or submit to: CRESC.AnnualConference@manchester.ac.uk http://www.cresc.ac.uk

Proposals for performances, exhibitions and displays are welcome, but must be self-funded.

Also the FRAMING THE CITY – PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION

FRAMING THE CITY is a juried photography competition accompanying a major international conference hosted by CRESC at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from the 6th – 9th September 2011.

First and second prizes will be awarded to those photographs judged to best capture the conference theme: FRAMING THE CITY. Entrants are invited to examine the nature of change in the urban environment; to reflect on and challenge notions of city living from the local to the global and across cultural, technical and political landscapes.

The CRESC Framing the City conference aims to scrutinise the processes by which cities are conceptualised, realised, lived and contested. All shortlisted entrants will be part of an online competition gallery on flickr, hosted as part of the conference proceedings.

The winning entrants will:

·         have their work published in the prestigious online magazine Manchester Review http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/
·         have their work featured on the CRESC FRAMING THE CITY conference brochure (1st prize, front cover; 2nd prize, back cover)
·         receive a collectors’ item hardback copy of the work of photographer Stephen Gill http://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/about
·         receive a cash prize (1st prize £100; 2nd prize £50)
·         have their work displayed at the Royal Northern College of Music during the conference
·         attend a prize giving at the conference opening ceremony on 6th September

Deadline for entries: Thursday 30 June 2011

There is a limit of 3 entries per person, but prizes will be awarded to single photographs not to a collection of work and entrants must agree to the ‘Creative Commons Licence’ conditions of flickr.

To enter please go to www.cresc.ac.uk/news/news-from-cresc/competition-photos-of-the-city<http://www.cresc.ac.uk/news/news-from-cresc/competition-photos-of-the-city>

Gillian Evans (Dr)

RCUK Research Fellow

Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC)

University of Manchester

Author of Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain  (www.palgrave.com)

CRESC is a collaboration between the Open University and the University of Manchester. For the latest news on CRESC activities please visit our brand new website