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AAG Conference, Las Vegas, 22-27 March 2009 Call for Papers CALCUTTA'S MODERNITIES Studies of urban modernity are canonic to urban geography, sociology, social history and political economy. Yet, often, as Jennifer Robinson has recently noted, "colonial and neo-imperial power relations...remain deeply embedded in the assumptions and practices of much contemporary urban theory" (2006:2). Diverting the hegemonic gaze in 'world cities', 'global cities' and 'metropolitan' studies away from a continuing return to privileging hierarchies of urban influence, i.e., wealthy Western cities (Prakash, 2008), this session proposes a focus through one city, Calcutta, in order to open discussions towards a postcolonial urban theory; this work thus seeks to legitimize the specificities of a key modern city whose role, despite its infamy and influence, remains under-appreciated in Anglophone academic literature. Calcutta's histories are integrally constituted through narratives of modernity (colonialism, trade, industry, architecture, diaspora, nationalisms, state conflict, inequality, etc). Yet, urban modernity is rarely read through the lens of a postcolonial city like Calcutta. What do the spaces and places of Calcutta (territorial, imagined, dispersed and diverse) have to say to how we continue to construct narratives of urban modernity and the city? How is its place in the history of empire relevant to contemporary worries about world cities and global cities? It too was once a world city, a second city of empire, a City of Palaces. How does its supposed wane in global influence speak to constructing contemporary debates around the urban, development, creativity, neo-liberalizing economies, mobility, identity, etc? What does this fascinating, diverse, lovely and troubled city have to say to contemporary human geographies? This session aims to gather a growing interest and work on Calcutta's past and present to address its key place in the social, cultural, historical and economic geographies of the present. Papers are welcomed on such topics as (but not limited to...): * contemporary politics of re-naming * new and returning urban and suburban developments * landscapes of Calcutta's diasporic identities * geographies of Calcutta's historic ethnic diversity (Jewish, Chinese, Greek, etc). * cultural politics in a changing India * ruin as immanence in urban modernity * consumption and exhibition * urbanizing mobilities * exurban dispossession and resistance * food and the city * politics and violence, then and now * sexualities and the post-colonial city * alternative economies in Calcutta * Calcutta and representation * geographies of the city's musical cultures * visual cultures of urban Bengal * Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak and the "new" Calcutta * Jibanananda Das and the "new" Calcutta Authors are asked to submit a short abstract (250 words) to the session organizer, Mark Jackson <[log in to unmask]>, by October 5th. Registration with the AAG for the conference and obtaining a PIN is also required. See AAG.org _______________________________________________________ [log in to unmask] An urban geography discussion and announcement forum List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/URB-GEOG-FORUM Maintained by: RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group UGRG Home Page: http://www.urban-geography.org.uk