Journal for philosophy and cultural studies Topos published by the European Humanities University (Vilnius) welcomes submissions for publication.  A special topic of the next issue is “Spatial Turn” in Contemporary Social Sciences and Humanities.

Guest editors: Yuliya Biedash and Siarhei Liubimau

The aim of this issue is to analyze causes and consequences of “spatial turn” observed in social sciences and humanities over last decades. Why does the necessity to revise traditionally established notions of space (and spatial configurations like city, border, home, homeland, workspace, spatial identity, etc.) emerge in various research fields? Is it possible to talk about the rise of new research paradigms, which enable adequate depiction, and diagnosis of currently lived socio-spatial transformations?

Peripheral Visions: Suburbs, Representation and Innovation
Kingston University, United Kingdom, 18-19 June 2011
Deadline: 01/02/2011

Recent work in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of suburban studies has focused on how suburbs have become increasingly diverse and dynamic places. Arguably, though, perceptions of suburban life, whether in executive commuter belts, banlieues or shanty towns, continue to be dominated by a relatively narrow range of representations. Yet, as suburbs have emerged, developed and diversified, new forms of creative production – across film, photography, literature, music and digital media – have arisen from and in response to them.

First Call for Participation
6th International Conference of Critical Geography 2011
“Crises – Causes, Dimensions, Reactions”
Frankfurt, Germany, 16-20 August 2011
http://www.iccg2011.org

Мeнск у дзесятцы самых прывабных гарадоў для турыстаў ва Ўсходняй Еўропе

Фота Bruce Bi // lonelyplanet.com.

Hi all. Please, welcome one more urban scholar in our the ‘urbanism crew’ section. Jakub Grygar, Ph.D., is currently teaching and researching at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His academic interests include ethnicity, nationalism, EU integration, urban anthropology, social memory and his current research project is titled Enacting the EU: international borders and politics of space in Polish-Belarus context. To learn more, read here.

Although with many of us Jakub has been in cooperation for quite a while, nonetheless it’s pleasure to see him ‘officially’ as part of the critical urbanist team.

Welcome, Jakub!

On photo: Jakub Grygar is welcoming Critical Urbanism Lab and its members.

Open Seminar titled ‘Belarus & Ukraine in the Context of Spatial Dimension of Globalization: State, Capital, and Territoriality’ took place in L’viv (Ukraine), December 4-5. The seminar was co-organized by the Laboratory of Critical Urbanism (Vilnius, Lithuania) and the Center for Urban History of Est Central Europe (Lviv, http://www.lvivcenter.org/).

Program of the event can be downloaded here.

Hey, check out our ‘teaching urbanism’ section for 2 more sullabi updates kindly contributed by our 3 team-members: Dzmitry Karenka & Siarhei Liubimau (‘Tourism in the Context of Critical Theory‘) and Yakub Grygar’s course “Social Anthropology and the City‘. All courses are stored here.

Hi there,

We’ve got a new section on the blog called ‘teaching_urbanism’ which will store the educational materials (course sullabi, bibliography lists, etc.). Currently, there’ s  ‘Gender and Space’ Course that was kindly contributed by Ben Cope. However, there’s more to come soon. Keep updated.

Here’s the video from the Budapest conference “Alternative Culture & Urban Space” which many of us attended. Lude made a great video presentation out of it. Now we all can enjoy the clear answer what the “Urban Studies” and “Alternative Culture” stand for. The only thing that I wish to be changed is writing Belarus instead of “Byelorussia” (the country that doesn’t exist anymore, at least officially).

Ben, c’etait un superb introduction au sujet!

more about "video Urban Space – budapest, hongrie…", posted with vodpod

Thank you Lude!

Today, July 24, 2009, due to the heavy rain, certain areas of Minsk (Niamiha, Kamarouka, vul. Jakuba Kolasa, andothers) got literally under water – blocking the city traffic and driving crazy car owners who happened to be seized by the flood. The event was a true sublime in its clash between the forces of nature and the civilization of the city. It was interesting to see how quickly citizens of Minsk started to post pictures of the flooding in different online communities and forums More pictures here: