Ambiguous Territories: Articulating New Geographies in Latin American Modern Architecture and Urbanism

[i]Call for papers[/i] March 27-28, 2009 Columbia University, New York We invite the submission of papers that consider the modern architecture and urban design of Latin America in the 19th and 20th Centuries. In some formulations of architectural history and theory Latin America endures as a category of analysis and as a delimited cultural territory. Alternative discourses resist the term Latin America; revisionist positions attempt to sweep away the residues of this grand narrative through the presentation of individual or singular experiences that reorganize connections and associations, and present new geo-cultural assemblies. Intra- and extraregional networks, the emigration and immigration of ideas, architects and designers, the reorganization of the nation-state, the collapse of the politics of modernism, help to contest but also to reassert the idea of Latin America. The tension between these approaches to the architecture and urbanism of the “region" has rarely been critically examined. This conference calls upon scholars to situate their research in this contested geographical, cultural, political, and ontological imaginary called Latin America. It asks researchers to examine their work in relation to other possible geographies (pan, national, regional, or international zones of identification, or other imagined or repressed configurations) that help identify or dissolve, assert or disregard, manifest or negate, this simple yet haunting enunciation. Paper proposals will be accepted in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Presentations are to be given in English. Financial assistance will be available to participants in support of travel expenses. Submissions from emerging scholars and doctoral students are particularly encouraged. Deadlines: [b]Paper proposals/abstracts (max. 500 words): November 1, 2008[/b] Acceptance notifications: December 1, 2008 Paper deadline: February 1, 2009 Paper proposals should be sent via email in MSWORD or PDF format to: [url=mailto:ambiguousterritories@gmail.com]ambiguousterritories@gmail.com[/url] Ambiguous Territories: Articulating New Geographies in Latin American Modern Architecture and Urbanism is organized by the doctoral students in architectural history and theory at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University. The conference is supported by the GSAPP, the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.