EAUH 2024 in Ostrava

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EAUH 2024 in Ostrava
Call for Papers by the 20 October
https://eauh2024ostrava.osu.eu/call-for-papers/

Main Sessions:
M26 Imaginary vs. Real: Towns on the Border and Border in Towns

Main chair: Jana Vojtíšková, doc., PhDr., Ph.D., Institut of History, University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic)
E-mail: jana.vojtiskova@uhk.cz
1st Co-chair: Drahoslav Magdoško, Mgr., Ph.D., Institut of History, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (Slovakia)
E-mail: drahoslav.magdosko@upjs.sk
2nd Co-chair: Josef Kadeřábek, PhDr., Ph.D., Regional Museum in Slaný (Czech Republic)
E-mail: kaderabek.josef@seznam.cz

Short abstract
The section will be interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on the connection of history, sociology, and anthropology. It will deal with the issue of imaginary borders in urban space, in the wide timeframe of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.
Keywords: symbolic communication; imaginary boundaries; mind mapping; historical and visual anthropology

Topic(s)
symbolic communication; imaginary boundaries; mind mapping; historical and visual anthropology

Session content
There are borders that no one drew on maps, but people carried them in their minds. Often contemporaries even perceived them more sharply than the real, visually represented ones. Exceeding these imaginary boundaries was undesirable, punishable, and had social, economic, and political consequences. The goal of our section is to raise and then deepen the topic of imaginary borders and maps in the field of research in urban history. How did imaginary borders come about? Did they enter urban space to become physical boundaries? Did the vanished physical boundaries remain in people as mental traces? Were there rituals associated with crossing them? We would like to find an answer to these and many other questions with the help of the methodology of historical and visual anthropology, urban studies, or the history of everyday life. The issue of mental or imaginary mapping, which deals with the creation of alternative city maps and plans based on local awareness or the nomenclature of city districts used by different social groups, should not be left out. We are also interested in the answers to the questions whether these imaginary maps have the same borders as the physical ones, what their roots are. How do the imaginary maps of different social groups differ? In connection with the above, we open the scope to both medieval and early modern themes, so that we can trace the phenomenon of the imaginary borders of our ancestors across these two epochs in the light of summary contributions and case studies.

EAUH 2024 Cities at the Boundaries

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Welcome!

It is a great privilege to inform you that the sixteenth conference of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) will take place in Ostrava, Czech Republic from 4 to 7 September 2024.

The Local Organizing Committee is pleased to host the interdisciplinary EAUH 2024 Conference and to follow up on the highly successful 15th EAUH Conference in Antwerp.

In 2024 the theme of the European Association for Urban History Conference is going to be “Cities at the Boundaries”, however the EAUH 2024 Conference will be also open for all topics and research aspects from the field of urban history.

Therefore, the European Association for Urban History invites scholars to discuss both the boundaries of social and economic development related to cities and urban agglomeration, as well as a wide array of topics related to cities which lay on geographic-, state-, as well as other borders. The EAUH 2024 specifically welcomes all topics related to the environmental problems and sustainable development of cities, such as post-industrial transformation, modernization of public infrastructure, and social housing.

The EAUH 2024 conference is also a great opportunity to discuss the current topics of cultural-, and industrial heritage as well as its preservation and the renewal of cities, for example the impact of structural change and armed conflicts. The Local Organizing Committee would also like to invite historians of medieval-, and modern urban history to discuss current themes via the use of multidisciplinary and comparative approaches.

In 2012 Prague hosted an EAUH Conference for the first time in the Czech Republic. Thus, it is the privilege of the city of Ostrava and the University of Ostrava to be the second host for an EAUH Conference in Czechia.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Ostrava developed into one of the most important centres for coal mining, and metallurgy in Central Europe. In the past decades the Ostrava region has undergone a successful economic transformation, and presently is an important economic-, cultural and educational on Czech Republic’s borders with Slovakia and Poland. The history of Ostrava city and its agglomeration represents a unique path of urbanization and industrialization, and offers unique industrial heritage sites as well as modern museums for the curious visitor.

The Local Organizing Committee kindly invites you to explore the conference website which provides information related to the scientific content of the conference as well as practical information about travelling to Ostrava and finding appropriate accommodation.