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!

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:

• http://n-europe.eu/news/2009/07/24/zaleva_u_mensku_fota_i_videa
• http://black-hg.livejournal.com/30279.html
• http://by-dialog.livejournal.com/176098.html#cutid1
• http://community.livejournal.com/minsk_by/5944932.html#cutid1
• http://pics.livejournal.com/andpar/pic/0002wy3g/
• http://travel-by.livejournal.com/7731.html
• http://sukin-sin-yakin.livejournal.com/52542.html
• Many pictures here – http://ctv.by/news/~group__m11=287~page__n16=1~news__n16=24095
• and some FUN pictures by LJ users: http://community.livejournal.com/minsk_by/5940925.html

Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Mayor of Birmingham

Apart for the Center for Cultural Studies and it’s leader S. Hall, a British city Birmingham is known to Belarusian intellectual public for its prominent mayors -   Joseph Chamberlain (father) and (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain (son) who, for some mysterious reason, became a source of inspiration for the participants (urban researchers) of the round-table which can be accessed (regretfully, in a mixture of Russian and Belarusian languages) here

Please, spread around a word about this ‘Chamberlains phenomenon’ in Belarusian urban studies

P.S. What’s the fame  and legacy of Chamberlains in his home country?

Arthur Neville Chamberlain, mayor of Birmingham and Primer Minister of Great Britain

Last week, on June 19, we’ve been fortunate enough to look, to listen and even to talk to the mayors of the European cities at the International Mayors Forum in Vilnius titled “Culture as s Driving Force in City Development’.

In a strange mixture of academics and urban bureaucrats, some of the Critical Urbanists  managed to pass across their message as to what a city could be without municipal authorities intervention in a city space.

Even though the translation into major languages was provided, i.e. Lithuanian, Russian, French, German, etc., still the translation from the academic language to the bureaucratic one was definitely missing.

Have a look here for the FORUM PROGRAMME

Jekaterina Lavrinec with her presentation: ‘City as a Playground: Formation of New Rituals (the Case of Vilnius)’

Video:

Siarhej Liubimau: ‘Gentrification and Two Notions of Culture It Implies’ (the Case Study of Warsaw district Praga)

Video:

Nerius Milerius: ‘Practicing the City with a Moving Camera: Paradoxes of the European Center/European Border’

photo

Video:

Hi all,

Find below the EHU students’ project on imagining Minsk as European Capital of Culture.

This is part of the course on critical urbanism taught by Ben and Siarhej at EHU.

Comments and questions are warmly welcome. For your convenience the file is also attached.

However, please, do not distribute the file without authors permission.

Minsk – Stolica Kultury Evropy

The following is a brief account of an exercise imagining that Minsk might be European Capital of Culture. We considered three stages of the process: 1) how to present a bid for Minsk to be Capital of Culture; 2) what the event Minsk European Capital of Culture might include and 3) a review section assessing possible plusses and minuses of the event.

1. Bidding for Minsk

2 ideas –

a. Minsk – Sovietski Gorod

Idea of building on what is there, on Minsk’s specificity, on using its heritage as Soviet utopia as brand, and selling the event both internationally and within Belarus. Would include artists of Social Realism and of war. Also the question was raised of hi-tech in relation to this legacy.

b. Minsk – Molodaya Evropa

Build on the idea of a ‘kaloritny underground’ as a key element of Minsk’s post-sovietness and would seek to highlight and extend the existing network of small clubs.

In the discussions between these 2 options, the issue of trying to appeal both to European tourists and to Moscow was raised.

2. What would Minsk Stolica Kultury Evropy include?

Event slogan: Industry, Folk, Ecology

Idea to use Minsk’s industrial heritage as a setting for musical and ecological events building community and social/ecological consciousness.

Eg: street festivals on streets in run-down industrial districts of the city

Rock festival on the mountain of ‘musor’ on the outskirts of the city (festival itself as creator of musor on the mountain of musor).

In now unused estates/institutions (usadbach) around Minsk.

Putting spotlight on Minsk’s waterways.

‘Nedostroiki’ – which are now places of ‘neformalnie tusovki’ also to be used for artistic/music events.

In discussions, emerged the question of what is a city and what is outside a city? Also limits and potential of using festival/event as a motor of change.

3. Expected +’s and –’s of Minsk Stolica Kultury Evropy

+’s

1. City made attractive for tourists

2. Development of infrastructure

3. Work on the beauty of the city

4. Psychological – ‘we are a cultural capital’

5. Development of myths about Minsk (currently not very positive)

6. Administration – change of mindset

7. Keeping cultural elite in Minsk

8. Creating new cultural forms

9. Local activism

10. Citizen engagement

11. Creating chaos in an orderly city

12. Will make obvious the current lack of culture

-’s

1. Will make obvious the current lack of culture

2. Changing local way of life

3. Only facades will be improved

4. Capital investment in event would suck money from elsewhere

5. Question of control

6. Rubbish

7. Destroy our ‘nice peaceful way of life in Belarus’

8. It will turn out just like always

9. Introduce a competitive comparative element – was Minsk as good as other cities?

10. The authorities will shut it down

11. It will be of interest only to small circle of people

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Hi there,

A rather unique event for Belarusian intellectual life: presentation of 5 editions devoted in different ways to urban studies related to Belarus and neighboring countries.The presentation is followed by an expert discussion on the state of Urban Studies in Belarus. Check out the detailed information – (запрашэнне_на_прэзентацыю_і_дыскусію) (приглашение_на_презентацию_и_дискуссию)

Books to be presented:

Please, feel free to circulate this information to those who might be interested to come and participate.

Books outlines can be viewed here