Melbourne: Nation, City, Place: Rethinking Nationalism

beatriz

Nation, City, Place: Rethinking Nationalism International conference
July 14, 15 and 16, 2006

Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
The University of Melbourne

Nation, City, Place: Rethinking Nationalism
Conference theme and brief

The 21st Century has emerged as a post-national era of globalisation, flexible accumulation and trans-national migrations where international unions and alliances (both economic and political) erode the familiar criterions of modern nationalisms. It is in this climate of decentered identities and multiple subjective positions (ethnicity, gender, race and class) that we revisit the idea of the postcolonial nation in terms of its geographic boundaries and physical landscapes, urban capitals, parliament buildings and public monuments. In reconsidering material culture in terms of the physical manifestations of the imaginings and desires of homogeneous subject-hood we hope to question the validity of the national model. The contention of this conference is that architecture and urbanism remain the primary cultural expression of the national imagination, and its successes and failures can be read in the complex intersections of politics, society, place, city and nation.

The 3-day conference will be conducted as follows:
The presentations will be framed within two categories of postcolonial nationalisms that of settler colonies and colonised territories of Asia and former commonwealth dominions, in order to explore the different meanings, interpretations and outcomes of nationalism in these two political contexts. Plenary sessions will be conducted on specific topics Re-thinking Nationalism. Presentations will explore how research in Architecture, Urban Planning, Landscape and Material Culture contribute to the above discourse.

Find more: http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/features/conferences/ncp/index.html