This excursion to Budapest (2 days, scheduled in the third week of October, approx. 20/21st October) is offered by an international team to doctoral students and advanced master students in urban studies (“Stadtforschung”), with the overall aim of providing a palpable opportunity for the participants to discuss their ongoing thesis project work. It will serve as the initial sphere to get to know each other in a friendly atmosphere and to discuss your approaches in a vibrant and dynamic, yet at the same time conflictive and ambivalent city. In particular, the excursion aims to help the students present and debate their aims, objectives, concepts and methods; learn about a range of examples and explanations about current urban development phenomena ; develop the capacity for and engage in critical assessment of contemporary urban planning projects; develop a friendly and supportive group of researchers who can benefit from knowing about each other’s work during the course of this excursion and the related seminar (TISS SE 280.137).
Contemporary urban theory has developed apace over the last decade to consider the complex urban processes and issues that have risen as a result of globalisation, diversification of the economy, socio-demographic shifts, neo liberal political agendas, migration and growing concerns around the environment amongst many other salient issues. Urban studies now concerns itself also with new theoretical agendas which focus on questions of city materialities, mobilites, economies, differences, cultures, affect and politics making it an increasingly fascinating and stimulating field of study. Further, there is a growing interest in cities of the Global South, which has led to new ways of analysing the cities of the Global North which have been more significant in urban analysis to date. The seminar will have a particular emphasis on urban culture and public space, but contributions on other subjects are eligible. Doctoral students at any stage of their work from architecture, spatial planning, and more widely from social sciences and humanities, who are researching into urban issues are welcome to attend. Advanced master students who are in their final phase of writing their master thesis are most welcome as well.
The excursion will be interactive, delivered through one concentrated block in late October. It will provide general theoretical introduction regarding urban development phenomena, and links to contemporary urban development projects in Budapest, and to their critique. All students will prepare a text of 5-15 pages about their research and upload it on the course website at least 1 week in advance, so that the tutors and fellow students can read it in preparation for the excursion. Each contributions contains those questions you are intrigued by as regards practical relevance or theoretical dilemmata, and opportunities. For the organization, students will have to pay approx. 60-80 Euros.
