15th International Conference on Urban History (EAUH 2020)

Call for Papers

Date: September 2-5, 2020

Venue: University of Antwerp, Belgium

Proposal Submission Deadline: October 4, 2019

Spokesperson: Sarah Thieme, University of Münster

Co-organizer: Klaus Große Kracht, University of Münster

Religious communities exercised through their ideas and practices a profound influence on cities and urban life in Europe in the 20th century. Similarly, processes of urbanization affected religion as they created space for religion to develop new ideas and different social forms. Thus, we intend to analyze how religion and the city impinged on each other throughout the 20th century. There is still little historical research on how precisely religious changes (particularly secularization and de-churching) and processes of urbanization influenced each other in the 20th century.

Our session examines how the commitment, ideas and practices of religious actors shaped urban societies. Concurrently, we investigate how religion or religious communities themselves changed when faced with urban upheaval since this upheaval created space for religious innovation, for new theological and pastoral ideas, and for different religious social forms. We therefore analyze the relationship between religion and urban modernity: their complex processes of entanglement, disentanglement, and interaction.

In particular, we focus on how religious actors became involved in political and social conflicts, and how they helped to interpret, solve, overcome or intensify these conflicts. For, cities appear to us to be the central points of crystallization at which social disputes are located and become particularly prominent.

Accordingly, we examine how churches and religious communities responded to the challenges arising from urban and industrial upheavals in the 20th century, and what skills religious actors drew upon to play an active role in urban modernity. In particular, we will consider here the conflicts arising from urban segregation, de-industrialization, altered urban design and planning, the loosening of rigid socio-cultural milieus, changing values, as well as growing plurality and denominational mix.

Source: www.eauh2020.eu