Date: 22 October 2020
Time: 11AM–17PM
Organizers: Department of History, Chair of Comparative History
Mikhail Krom, Marina Belaia, Nari Shelekpayev
The event will be held via the Zoom platform
Access to connection: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81689625971?pwd=TXpSM2RGYWRSc0lzMG5yTkQxb05tdz09
Conference ID: 816 8962 5971
Access code: 480600
Research on capital cities has played a prominent role in the theoretical and empirical investigations by a variety of authors and in diverse fields of study, from the history of architecture, from urban planning to geography, and even in management and public administration. Capital cities are home to at least a billion people worldwide. Compared to other types of cities, capitals are likely to combine prominent and dynamic urban landscapes along with intense socio-cultural mobility and stratification. Given a number of historical factors, most current national and regional capitals share many similar features - this is why comparative research is necessary. The conference aims to explore the evolution of approaches to the capital cities, the trajectories of their movement and transformation within imperial and national borders, the (mis)representation of ‘national’ or group identities (as well as the collective memories and traumas within their symbolic spaces), but also in topics related to the exclusion and marginalization of certain social groups or individuals from such spaces. The investigation of these issues, ultimately, aims to generate novel contributions within the study of capital cities per se, but also to raise broader questions regarding the strategies modern states employ to construct, legitimize, and represent themselves in the modern epoch via and within the urban space of cities that have been called ‘capitals’.
Program:
10.50 Welcome Address: Mikhail Krom, Professor, History Department, EUSP
11.00–12.30 Keynote Lecture: When Accra Was Like Tashkent: Urban Comparison in the Cold War, Łukasz Stanek, Manchester School of Architecture, The University of Manchester (UK)
12.30–12.45 Break
12.45–14.45 Session 1. The Construction and Evolution of Modern Capitals
Mikhail Krom (EUSP), Some Reflections on the Emergence of Capital Cities in Early Modern Europe
Lubna Irfan (Aligarh Muslim University), The (Dis)Appearance of the Public Spaces of Coffeehouse in the Mughal Shahjahanabad (Delhi)
Sarah Hendriks (University of Edinburgh), Culture and Capital: Sites of Musical Entertainment and Urban Development in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh
Elvira Ibragimova, Constructing Capitals: City Status and Implementation of Architectural Projects in Interwar
Discussant: Nari Shelekpayev (Asst. Prof., History Department, EUSP)
14.40–15.00 Break
15.00–17.00 Session 2. Planning & Design in Modern and Contemporary Capitals
W.J. Dorman (University of Edinburgh), The Politics of the Edifice: Egypt’s New Administrative Capital
Evgeny Manzhurin (University of Eastern Finland), Soviet Moscow: A Capital without a Symbol?
Amgalan Sukhbaatar (École Pratique des Hautes Études), The Transformation of Ulaanbaatar Urban Structure
Discussant: Mikhail Krom