Conference "Metropolitan Temporalities"

From November 20th-22nd the 3rd annual conference of the International Graduate Research Program Berlin - New York - Toronto "The World in the City: Metropolitanism and Globalization from the 19th Century to the Present" will take place at the Center for Metropolitan Studies/Technical University Berlin.

The conference explores the question what role time plays in the characterization of the metropolis and the global processes that sustain metropolitan life. Over the past three decades, both urban studies and globalization studies have predominately focused on spatial concerns, often neglecting the important temporal dimensions of global urban development. The conference therefore seeks to systematically examine the diverse temporal aspects of global exchange and metropolitan development.

Urban temporalities not only affect the historicization of the past, present, and future, but they also raise questions about changing social structures, patterns of living and the local and global spatialization of the urban. For instance, conceptions and perceptions of time change dramatically during periods of social upheaval, or as the result of technological innovations (e.g. the standardization of times through "railway time", the organization of working hours according to technical "requirements"). Time is also central to cultural differentiation and religious segregation (e.g. observance of a day of worship in the three main world religions). Struggles over the regulation of time have been a field of control and contestation throughout colonialism and postcolonialism. Throughout the course of globalization, during which the world became interconnected through transport and telecommunication networks and the intensification of exchange of goods, information, and people, different notions of time have often collided, especially in metropolitan contexts.

Interested participants are welcome. Please register by November 12th at temporalitiesmetropolitanstudies.de

For further information on the conference please go to www.conference.metropolitanstudies.de

Program

Thursday, November 20th

12:00-12:15 Welcome, Dorothee Brantz (IGK Berlin, Germany)

12:15-13:45 Keynote, Mustafa Dikeç (Paris, France) "Temporal Infrastructures: Modernity, Time and the City"

Coffee break

14:15-15:45 Panels

1) Questioning the Temporalities of Metropolitan Memory
Eray Cayli (London, UK) "Negotiating Temporality through Architectural Memorialization in Turkey and Beyond"
David Hugill (IGK Toronto, Canada) "The Urban Politics of 'Colonial Time' in Contemporary Minneapolis"
Pascaline Thiolliere (Grenoble, France) "Urban Memorials: Settings for Gestures Embodying the Relationship between the Living and the Dead"
Discussant: Karen Till (Maynooth, Ireland)
Moderator: Samuel Merrill (IGK Berlin, Germany)

2) Reconciling Temporalities of Transformation
Azam Khatam (IGK Toronto, Canada) "Beyond the Occupied Moments: Enqelab Street the Contested Space of Politics in Tehran"
Marc Pradel (Barcelona, Spain) "Strategic Planning Tempos and the Unexpected: the Case of Barcelona"
Meisen Wong (IGK Berlin, Germany) "The Haunting of a Global Future: Temporal Contradictions in New Ordos, China"
Discussant: Jennifer Jenkins (IGK Toronto, Canada)
Moderator: Afia Afenah (IGK Berlin, Germany)

Coffee break

16:30-17:30 Faculty-Student Meetings + Poster Presentations

18:00 Reception

Friday, November 21st

10:00-11:30 Panels

3) Everyday Life, Informality and the Experience of Permanent Temporariness
Lucas-Andres Elsner, Dirk Heinrichs, Mirko Goletz (Berlin, Germany) "Providing Public Transportation Services under Conditions of 'Permanent Temporariness': Strategies within Bogotá's Informal Bicitaxi Sector to Deal with Uncertainty"
Mara Ferreri (London, UK), Alex Vasudevan (Nottingham, UK), Gloria Dawson (Leeds, UK) "Flexible, Adventurous, Precarious: Everyday Experiences of Temporary Property Guardians"
Melanie Lombard (Manchester, UK) "Struggling, Suffering, Hoping, Waiting: Perceptions of Temporality in Two Informal Neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico"
Discussant: Talja Blokland (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Christian Haid (IGK Berlin, Germany)

4) Cultural Representations of Urban Rhythm
Matthias Grotkopp (Berlin, Germany) "'Doing a Job': Crime, Urbanity and the Art of Work"
Talel Ben Jemia (Berlin, Germany) "'Just another Lost Angel': John Rechy's 'City of Night' as a Song of the City"
Johanna Rohlf (IGK Berlin, Germany) "As Time Goes by. Jazz and Urban Rhythm in the 1920s"
Discussant: Daniel Morat (Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Berit Hummel (IGK Berlin, Germany)

Coffee break

12:00-13:30 Panels

5) Histories of the Future Metropolis
Owen Gutfreund (IGK New York, USA) "Planning the Utopian Metropolis of the Future - NY in 1939, Toronto in 1959, and Shanghai in 2010"
Florian Hutterer (Berlin, Germany), Angela Million (Uttke) (IGK Berlin, Germany) "150 Years of James Hobrecht Plan for Berlin. Reception, Rejection and Acceptance of a Master Plan"
Rosemary Wakeman (IGK New York, USA) "Colonial Cities as Future Metropolis: L'Urbanisme aux Colonies et dans les Pays Tropicaux"
Discussant: Sybille Frank (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Stefan Höhne (Berlin, Germany)

6) Political Time in Urban Settings
Roger Keil, (IGK Toronto, Canada) "Stuck in the Middle: Rolling with Neoliberalism in the Toronto Urban Region"
Henrik Lebuhn (Berlin, Germany) "Shifting Politics in Post-Wall Berlin: From Global City Dreams to Neoliberalism Light"
John Mollenkopf (IGK New York, USA) "The Fall of the Koch Coalition in New York and the Challenges of a Left-oriented Governing Majority, 1977-2013"
Discussant: Kanishka Goonewardena (IGK Toronto, Canada)
Moderator: Lisa Vollmer (IGK Berlin, Germany)

Lunch break

15:00-16:30 Plenary Debate

Dorothee Brantz (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Mustafa Dikeç (Paris, France)
Dietrich Henckel (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Karen Till (Maynooth, Ireland)
Moderator: Rosemary Wakeman (IGK New York, USA)

Coffee break

17:00-18:30 Faculty-Student Meetings and Book Presentation

19:00 Conference Dinner

Saturday, November 22nd

10:00-11:30 Panels

7) Colonizing Time? The Impact of Globalization on Urban Rhythms
Martin Danyluk (IGK Toronto, Canada) "Supply-Chain Urbanism: Coordinating Flows in Planetary Space-Time"
Hans-Liudger Dienel (IGK Berlin, Germany): "Multilocals as Time-Pioneers of New Urban Rhythms"
Carola Hein (Delft, Netherlands): "On-time Urbanity and Spatiotemporal Boundaries in Global Port Cities"
Discussant: Dietrich Henckel (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Jeanne Haffner (Cambridge, USA)

8) Time, Land and Rent
Philip Ashton (Chicago, USA) "Reconceiving Law’s Temporality: Rent, Mortgage Contracts and the Adjudication of the US Mortgage Crisis"
Benjamin Teresa (New Brunswick, USA) "Timing Rent Gaps: Speculation in Rent-Regulated Housing in New York City"
Thorben Wieditz (IGK Toronto, Canada) "Relationship Between Industrial Lands in the City of Toronto and Urban Containment Policies"
Discussant: Kathe Newman (New Brunswick, USA)
Moderator: Ute Lehrer (IGK Toronto, Canada)

Coffee break

12:00-13:30 Panels

9) Everyday Temporalities and Contemporaneity in Urban Streets
Brian Ladd (Albany, USA) "Speed and Conflict in Pre-Automotive Streets in London, Paris, and Berlin"
Annika Levels (IGK Berlin, Germany) "Urban Streets in Transition - Sustainability, Time, and Space in Contemporary Berlin and New York"
Beate Löffler (Duisburg, Germany) "Hamlet or Metropolis? Dimensions of Time and Space in Tokyo's Backstreets"
Discussant: Dirk Heinrichs (Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Anna Steigemann (IGK Berlin, Germany)

10) Urban Mobility, Social Acceleration and Time Regimes
Maren Boersma (Utrecht, Netherlands, and Hong Kong) "Fast Life, Low Incomes? Time in Everyday Lives of Low Income Service Sector Workers"
Sebastian Dorsch (Erfurt, Germany) "São Paulo, 1870?1930. Mobility, Urban Time Regimes, and Spatial Arrangements in the 'Yankee City of Brazil'"
Simon Gunn (Leicester, UK) "Lived Time and the Industrial City: England, c.1950-1970"
Discussant: Christoph Bernhardt (IGK Berlin, Germany)
Moderator: Alexander Nützenadel (IGK Berlin, Germany)

Lunch break

15:30 Excursions in Berlin