Call For Papers EAUH 2010 Ghent, Session S40:

Urban History and Building Rituals: the construction of civic identity

It is a commonly held fact that rituals are interesting proxies for
various research areas. In this session, we would like to address the
broad range of rituals and ceremonies surrounding the construction of
public buildings, both religious and non-religious. From the foundation
ceremonies of ancient palaces of Assyrian rulers, the consecration of
churches during the (counter)reformation, or the (ritual) rebuilding of
monuments ravaged by twentieth-century wars: foundation rituals have
been able to embed buildings within the urban communities with their own
beliefs, fears and hopes.

The various paraphernalia (such as medals, inscriptions, sermons,
commemorative plays or volumes of poetry), composed in honor of those
ceremonies, mirror the multiple preoccupations and agenda?s that were at
play for the institutional networks or private founders. By adopting
specific rituals, they consciously invest the architecture with a
particular meaning in the hope to determine its perception both
materially and intellectually. Considering the architecture from the
original context of its genesis and purpose offers a unique opportunity
for the study of urban history, unveiling the (changing) strategies at
work in the location, design and use of a building within a civic
community. We would thus like to address questions on the relation
between the architecture, the urban history and the founding rituals.

Firstly, we are particularly interested in the use of the material
produced for the building-rituals, as alternative though valuable
historical resources, which enable us to shed a new light or even trace
the history of urban communities and their public buildings. Secondly,
we would like to address questions on how the existing urban context,
the ritual and the building relate and interact. What do specific
building sites commemorate and how is this reflected in building
rituals? Are building rituals invented for specific occasions, or are
they adopted from existing processions and urban festivities? Do urban
contexts function as a background for the ceremonies? How do the
immaterial agendas and preoccupations of urban communities or founders
relate to the temporal materiality of the ritual and the durable
materiality of the artifacts produced for those rituals? Finally, we
especially invite papers which dicuss the question how buildings ?
invested with a very specific meaning ? influence and interact with
boroughs or cities as a whole.

Please send your abstracts to annefrancoise.morelugent.be and upload
them on the official conference site by december 30, 2009.

Dagmar Germonprez,
Anne-Françoise Morel