Conference Session: Beyond “Postmodern Urbanism”: Reconsidering the Forms and Politics of Twentieth-Century Urban Design"

College Art Association 104th Annual Conference.
Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, Contact: Anthony Raynsford, Email: Anthony.Raynsford@sjsu.edu
Website: http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2016callforparticipation
Histories of twentieth-century urban design have often cited the emergence of a so-called postmodern city around 1970, characterized aesthetically by pastiche or collage and politically by a neoliberal retreat from the public sphere. However, the hypothesis of the postmodern city depends upon a caricature of modernism that seems increasingly untenable. Modernist discourses on the open society, ecology, pluralism, and historical continuity often coincided with visual complexities or spatial discontinuities long before 1970. This panel invites papers that put “postmodern urbanism” into question by reconsidering the aesthetics and politics of twentieth-century urban. Topics might include the theorization of complexity in such movements as British Townscape; the role of social science in imagining cities as manageable “systems”; the relationship between advocacy planning and the rise of aesthetic pluralism; urban simulation as a model “bio-politics”; ideologies of historic preservation; utopian tracts, such as the Goodmans’ Communitas; and design arising from the spatio-political imagination of the counterculture.
PROPOSALS FOR PAPERS TO SESSION: Due May 8, 2015
Proposals for participation be emailed directly to Anthony.Raynsford@sjsu.edu . Every proposal should include the following five items:
1. Completed session participation proposal form, located at: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2016-call-for-participation.pdf
2. Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages.
3. Letter explaining speaker’s interest, expertise in the topic, and CAA membership status. 4. CV with home and office mailing addresses, email address, and phone and fax numbers. Include summer address and telephone number, if applicable.