[ecrea] CFP: LondonIsOpen: London as a Cosmopolitan City in Contemporary Culture - Altre Modernità N. 20

Altre Modernità/Other Modernities – Università degli Studi di Milano

N. 20 – 11/2018



Call for papers


*/LondonIsOpen: London as a Cosmopolitan City in Contemporary Culture/*

**

**

edited by Anna Viola Sborgi, Lawrence Napper and Nicoletta Vallorani

This issue of /Other Modernities/ will investigate cultural 
representations of contemporary London, from the viewpoint of the 
present historical moment, looking back at how the perception of the 
city’s cosmopolitan identity has developed. In the 20th and 21st century 
London has emerged as a global, cosmopolitan capital attracting visitors 
and migrants alike for its close association with an image of cultural 
openness, diversity, and inclusion. This association, however, has 
repeatedly been contested. Periodical resurgences of nationalism in 
specific historical moments leading to radical socio-political 
transformations and upheaval have often undermined the perception of a 
peaceful and inclusive cohabitation within the city: the 1931 Battle of 
Cable Street, the mid-1970s rise of the British National Front, the 
Brixton and London riots in 1981 and 2011, respectively, and, more 
recently, the post-Brexit cultural shock. Although these could be 
understood as episodic moments of crisis, they were also prepared by an 
endemic coexistence, within the very space of the metropolis, of 
different and often very contradictory discourses. London has always 
been, at one and the same time, a space of opportunity and of widening 
social inequality, of inclusion and exclusion.

An exploration of these conflicting discourses and of their cultural 
representations becomes urgent and crucial in this particular historical 
moment, in which on the one hand, London is experiencing a deep “crisis 
of conviviality” (Georgiou 2016) and might be on the verge of losing its 
cosmopolitan status – and, on the other, the preservation of this 
particular identity has been strongly advocated both by London dwellers 
– who perceive themselves as very distinct from the rest of the country 
– and by the local institutions, in particular by the newly elected 
mayor Sadiq Khan, with his media campaign #londonisopen.

The urban space is a privileged site of negotiation for a series of 
challenges such as overpopulation, pollution, gentrification, urban 
sprawl and socio-political conflict, social, ethnic and gender inclusion 
and exclusion (Harvey 2001, Lees 2016, Madden and Marcuse 2016, Massey 
1994). These challenges are not only mirrored in cultural 
representations of the city – from cinema to television, from 
photography to the press – but they are constantly re-defined and 
negotiated within these different media, shaping, in a two-way process, 
the political and social debate about urban life (Brunsdon 2007 and 
2009, Georgiou 2013, Shiel 2001, Shonfield 2000, Webb 2014).

We welcome proposals analysing the cultural representations of London in 
the 20th and 21st century in a wide range of formats and media (the 
press, popular and urban culture), with a particular emphasis on the 
visual (film, television, photography, visual adaptation of literary 
works), and through different theoretical frameworks – media and 
urbanism, cultural geography, Queer and Cultural Studies – and 
approaches – close analysis, historical and archival research.


Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:

- Racial tensions within the city and immigration

- Cosmopolitanism

- Brexit and London

- Crisis

- Social inclusion and exclusion, especially in relation to class

- Gender and the urban space: appropriation and loss of spaces (i.e. 
Soho and the queer community)

- Housing as a site of social contestation: from the early 20th century 
slum clearances, to the post-war egalitarian housing project and its crisis

- The financialisation of the economy, austerity, the economic crisis 
and the widening inequality gap

- Gentrification, redevelopment and social displacement

- Public space and private space

- Environmental challenges within the city: green spaces, pollution.

To this purpose, the editorial board has established the following 
*deadlines*; authors should send in their proposals in the form of a 10 
(min.) - 20 (max.) line abstract with a brief bio-bibliography to 
(amonline /at/ unimi.it) <mailto:(amonline /at/ unimi.it)> (both in English and in the 
language of their choice) *by 15th October 2017*. Full papers must be 
received by *15th February 2018*. Other Modernities accepts 
contributions in English, Italian, Spanish, and French. The issue will 
be published late November 2018.

We also welcome *book reviews and interviews*to authors and scholars who 
investigate the aforementioned topics. Contributors are free to contact 
the editors to discuss and clarify the objectives of their proposals, 
with a view to making the issue as homogeneous as possible also from a 
methodological point of view. The editors can be contacted via the 
Editorial Secretary ((amonline /at/ unimi.it) <mailto:(amonline /at/ unimi.it)>)



http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/index 
<http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/index>

<http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/index>
	
Altre Modernità | Altre Modernità 
<http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/index>
riviste.unimi.it <http://riviste.unimi.it>
Dimensione dei caratteri. Cruscotto. Nome utente: Password: Ricordami

For the full CFP: 
http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/8490 
<http://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/8490>


Dr. Anna Viola Sborgi

PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant
Film Studies, King's College London.
https://kcl.academia.edu/AnnaSborgi <https://kcl.academia.edu/AnnaSborgi>

PhD Comparative Literature, The University of Genoa, Italy, 2007.

@AnnaViolaSborgi
@CitiesinCrisis
http://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2017/01/conference-report-cities-crisis/ 
<http://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2017/01/conference-report-cities-crisis/>

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