February 17 and 18, 2023 | University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture
The first quarter of the XXI Century needs—demands—architectural historians to proactively distill the networks of power that plague the discipline. We are here to reimagine the discipline’s boundaries and decipher its intersections by foregrounding the plurality of political and economic actors at work in constructing the architectural narratives of the Americas and the Global South from the twentieth century to present. The paradox makes it even more interesting for the Americas, which belong both to the Global South and the Global North, problematizing the traditional geographical demarcation of our knowledge base.
On February 17 and 18, 2023, the Ph.D. students of the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture will host CROSSROADS, a symposium that invites critical discussion with respect to broadening the limits of authorized narratives in the canon. We invite doctoral students and emerging scholars in architectural history and allied fields to present current research that de-centers the individual architect, the individual building, embracing instead the crossroads of the overlooked evidence. Resulting in a subsequent publication, this symposium seeks to build an alliance of scholars whose research redefines the writing and teaching of architectural histories with this more inclusive future in mind.
Scholars working in the creation of knowledge and collaboration across disciplinary and geographic boundaries within histories of the built environment and historic preservation in the Americas and Global South should submit extended abstracts (750 words) by September 15, 2022 to be considered for presentation. Possible project themes include but are not limited to:
- Citizenship
- Economic Governance
- Power Exchanges (Global South/North)
- Authorized Heritage Discourse
- Environmental Justice
- Construction of Race
- Expressions of National & Cultural Identity
- Working Processes of Re-identification - Reinvention - Identity Erasure
- Cultural Landscapes
- Architectural Education
- South-South and North-South Exchange
- The Ontological Turn as it Affects Space
- Authorized Dimensions & Spatial Determinism
Submission guidelines:
Please submit one document with your title and abstract (750 words) and one document with your current biography (250 words) to utsoa.symposium@utexas.edu before September 15, 2022. Submissions should be formatted in PDF.
The symposium is planned as an in-person event at UT Austin. Complete presentations should be twenty minutes in length and will be followed by Q&A panels. Selected applicants will be notified of their acceptance no later than October 15, 2022. Questions and further inquiries should be directed to utsoa.symposium@utexas.edu.
Image: Yangbin Park, Border(less), 2020. Ink and graphite on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
