[CFP]
Scenes of Aleppo’s war-torn streets may be shocking to the world’s majority urban population, but such destruction would be familiar to urban dwellers as early as the third millennium BCE. While war is often narrated as a clash of empires, nation-states, and ‘civilizations,’ cities have been the strategic targets of military campaigns, to be conquered, destroyed, or occupied. Cities have likewise been shaped by war, through the transformation of urban space for the purposes of military production, the post-conflict reconstruction of streets, buildings, and public space, as well as sites for remembering the costs of war. This conference seeks to understand this critical intersection between war and urban society, culture, and the built environment, and welcomes interdisciplinary scholarship on the subject. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Cities as warzones
- Military occupation of cities
- Cities as sites of military production
- Cities and memorialization of war
- Postwar urban reconstruction
- War refugees and cities
The conference will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, at 365 Fifth Avenue in New York City on May 19, 2017. The intent is to assemble a program without chronological, methodological, or regional limits.