Urbanity: History, Concept, Uses

The conference looks at the concept of urbanity and its possible variations. How do we live (together) in dense urban spaces? How has urbanity been defined so far, how can we contribute to better grasp and describe it? The first session of the conference – “Retrospectives”– looks back at the multiple definitions of urbanity by practices and concepts and in different regions and historical periods, as well as in the more recent historiography. Here, the aim is to recapitulate the reflections and theoretical tools identified in the research group’s discussions on urbanity on a larger scale (Rau, 2020b): We will return in particular to the concepts of heterarchy, cospatiality and spatialisation, keeping in mind the essential role of religion, or the reciprocal formation of religion and urbanity more generally. How useful are these concepts in grasping urbanity/urbanities? How can we enrich/improve this methodological resource?

The second part of the conference – “Authors’ Workshop” – summarises the preliminary discussions on cities and urbanities, as they were engaged during the preparatory workshops “Typologising Cities” (May 2022) and “Metamorphoses of Urbanities” (June 2022).

Finally, the third session part of the conference offers the opportunity to look at urbanity through the lens of selected case studies and themes.