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CFP: Small Towns in Europe and Beyond, 20th-21th Century (September 2014, Lisbon) The session organizers welcome paper proposals for the session M35: "Small Towns in Europe and Beyond: 20th-21th Century", which will be part of the programme at 12th International Conference for Urban History organized by The European Association of Urban History (EAUH), 03.-06. September 2014, Lisbon, Portugal. Session description: In our research we have focused on analysis of identities of urban communities, and discovered that the perspective of small towns can contribute considerably to the debate. Yet the small towns are one of the neglected themes in urban history of modern and contemporary period. The project on small towns carried by Bernard Lepetit and Peter Clark more than 20 years ago was focused on early modern towns and had no continuation which would systematically research small towns in 19th century and later. This is surprising since in Europe the small towns remain to be quite visible type of urban settlement even in the 21st century, regardless of previous urban growth, regional urbanisation, and dominant position of metropolises, metropolitan agglomerations, and large cities in general. Our perspective is of course European. We claim that the number of small towns is still quite large, and that the experience of life and sociability in a small community is important. We propose to revisit the notion of small town in the context of the changes of the second half of the 20th century. We wish to add non-European perspective and we would like to approach the issue from interdisciplinary perspective. We are looking for contributions which would discuss the following questions: - What is understood as a small town in academic and public discourse and in various areas? Are they defined primarily by size of population, by their social functions, or by other criteria, such as morphology or distinct kind of culture? - Are the small towns only shrinking, losing population, and even dying since the 19th century, or have they shown capacity for sustainability and growth as well? - Is their economic, cultural and social function disappearing? Do they keep administrative functions? - How has globalisation influenced the fortunes of small towns? - What strategies are adopted by the local and regional officials for their small towns in order to keep towns alive, to cope with the small town condition, and to overcome stigma of smalltownness? - What frames of identification are used in (self)presentation of small towns? Do they relate to local, regional, national, or supranational contexts? - Is history important for small towns? How is history and memory used for representation and socialisation of their society? How do small towns encounter the process of musealisation? - How do small towns perceive and represent their position with regard to the border between urban and rural? With which side do they identify? Do they play with their “urban” nature and “urban” past? Keywords: Small Town; Heritage; Memory; Rural Town Period: 20th Century Scope: Europe and beyond Session organizer(s): Luda Klusakova (Czech Republic) - Charles University in Prague; Jaroslav Ira (Czech Republic) - Charles University in Prague; Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier (France) - EHESS Please note that paper proposals can only be sent on-line, via EAUH2014 conference website, where more detailed information on the proper format of the proposals can be found as well. (http://www.eauh2014.fcsh.unl.pt) Jaroslav Ira Charles University in Prague Faculty of Arts, Institute of World History Nam. Jana Palacha 2 Prague 1, 116 38 Czech Republic Email: ira.jaroslav@seznam.cz Visit the website at http://www.eauh2014.fcsh.unl.pt H-Spain --
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