Registration is now open for: ‘What is Space’: a Post-Disciplinary Workshop on the Return of an Old Debate

Date: 17 June 2014

Location: The Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Details: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/current/earlycareer/events/whatisspace/information/

A preliminary programme is available here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/current/earlycareer/events/whatisspace/programme/

Registration (limited availability): http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/current/earlycareer/events/whatisspace/registration/

Contact: Marijn Nieuwenhuis (Politics and International Studies, Warwick) at [log in to unmask]

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me (Pascal, Thoughts, 1964)

Space is the everywhere of modern thought. It is the flesh that flatters the bones of theory. It is an all-purpose nostrum to be applied whenever things look sticky (Crang and Thrift, Thinking Space, 2000)

The question of space has in both the humanities and the social sciences recently regained prominence on academic agendas. The so-called 'spatial turn', initially set in motion by geographers, has allowed historians, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, artists and others to return to the long abandoned, albeit fundamental, question of what space is. This reengagement has resulted in a gradual, ongoing questioning and re-opening of the great debates that earlier characterised the European Renaissance. Contemporary discussions and writings about space have led to a multiplication of literal and metaphorical spatial references ranging from 'location', 'terrain', 'site', 'region' among countless others. This intellectual enrichment means however also that the question of space has become an increasingly messy, ambiguous and sometimes even incongruous affair.

This workshop invites junior and senior academics from all academic faculties to explain and demonstrate how they conceptualise space in their work. We believe that the problem of space is too important to be left to one discipline. The objective of this one-day workshop is therefore to deterritorialise and transcend the longstanding disciplinary academic divisions and to reengage academics from all disciplines in an attempt to build bridges over the vast rivers that have come to divide us. The goal is not so much to arrive at a common consensus, nor to find a universally acceptable solution to the fundamental problem that space poses to us, but to openly start questioning and speculating again about the meanings we give to the concept.

*This workshop is funded by the Institute of Advanced Study