London, as you know is an infinite city, a fascinating place like few in the world where multiple cultures and identities coexist and in many negotiate their presence. Syracuse Architecture invites teachers and researchers who are animating the pedagogical and cultural life of the Syracuse London Program to share their perspectives on the idea of the city as a space of encounter, negotiation, identity and politics.
Tomorrow’s event will take place in the auditorium of Faraday House, from 5.30pm.
The symposium proposes the city as a common ground of discussion from a multidisciplinary perspective–from political theory, film, architecture, cultural studies etc. The event will be an opportunity to map out and share the common interests, ideas and perspectives that diverse fields of research bring to the idea of the city as a spatial and political realm.
Constructing a space of dialogue for SUL faculty, students and staff, the symposium will at the same time explore the potential for the center to engage in a public dialogue with different universities and institutions in London. The symposium aims to significantly contribute to the essential mission of a program abroad, which is to both animate an internal space of debate and engage with the larger audience of the city of London.
Faculty and students of the whole London Program are warmly invited to join us and contribute to the discussion, for what we hope will be the first of a series of events.
Organized by Francisco Sanin with the collaboration of Davide Sacconi
SCHEDULE
5:00 REFRESHMENTS
5:15 INTRODUCTION: FRANCISCO SANIN
5:20 ALESSANDRA CECOLIN
Jamme Masijd mosque in Brick Lane
5:40 BEV ZALCOCK
Changing faces & spaces of Docklands & the East End
6:00 SAM JACOBY
Privatized Space: Real Estate Speculation and the City
6:20 – 6:30 REFRESHMENTS
6:30 FORBES MORLOCK
Megalopolis: London and the Very Large
6:50 DAN WHEATLEY
Space, Faith and Belief in a Super-Diverse City
7:10 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
SPEAKERS – ABSTRACTS
ALESSANDRA CECOLIN
Alessandra Cecolin is a Lecturer at the Department of History, Goldsmiths, University of London. She has a PhD from the Department of Languages and Culture of the Near and Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
My field of expertise covers the history and development of Islamic cultures in the Middle East; wider conflict between national and religious identity for Jewish minorities living in Middle East; Islamic and Judaic shared history in Middle East, history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; absorption of Middle Eastern Jewish minorities in Israel. My book with I.B. Tauris entitled ‘Iranian Jews in Israel: Between Persian Cultural Identity and Israeli Nationalism’, will be released in September 2015.
ABSTRACT
The paper will be on Jamme Masijd mosque. Located in Brick Lane, it has a very long history of worship, from French Protestants in 1743 to a Methodist Chapel then later still to a Great Synagogue in 1898 and finally a Mosque – the Jamme Masjid in 1976. The example of the Jamme Masjid mosque will show how a space can adapt itself to the three monotheistic faiths and their cultural and religioius heritage.
BEV ZALCOCK
Bev Zalcock was born & raised in South East London. She makes no budget films with her partner, Sara Chambers, and teaches Film Studies at Birkbeck and Syracuse, London.
ABSTRACT
The talk will focus on the changing faces & spaces of Docklands & the East End, cataloguing the shift from decline to regeneration, and looking at the impact of power & politics on local working class communities, as well as noting the traditions of radical resistance. It will be illustrated by film clips.
SAM JACOBY
Sam Jacoby is an architect who trained at the Architectural Association School of architecture (AA) and the Technische Universität Berlin. He is currently Director of the Projective Cities programme at the AA and a Tutor at the Royal College of Art.
ABSTRACT
Privatized Space: Real Estate Speculation and the City
I will use Bedford Square and the Barbican to discuss how to describe and analyze urban plans in general, but also to talk about how London can be read specifically as a city shaped by real estate speculation and the architectural, urban and social forms it produces.
FORBES MORLOCK
Forbes Morlock teaches in the English & Textual Studies Department at Syracuse University London. As well as Marx and Dickens, his work takes in the writings of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Rancière and Sigmund Freud. He collaborates regularly with visual artists.
ABSTRACT
Megalopolis: London and the Very Large
A look at the then biggest city in the world, as if through the fossil record. Brief glimpses of the experience of unimagined urban size and growth. As we meet somewhere between Holborn Hill and the British Museum, the opening paragraphs of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and Karl Marx’s Capital sit back to back. Immense collections of commodities, crystal palaces, and dinosaurs promise to appear.
DANIEL WHEATLEY
Dan Wheatley was educated at a multi-racial school in Swaziland, established to oppose apartheid education policies in South Africa. He has a BA in Classical Civilisation and an MA in International Relations. He teaches courses on multi-culturalism, diversity and migration at several academic programmes in London. His other career is in public affairs, serving as Senior Diplomatic Officer for the UK Baha’i community, engaged in lobbying UK government and parliament on human rights issues and social policy.
ABSTRACT
Space, Faith and Belief in a Super-Diverse City
The key questions it would seek to address:
* Ancient Religious Spaces: Extinction or Adaption
* Migration and Religious Spaces: Sojourners to Settlers
* New Religious Architecture and Secular Spaces
* Multifaith and Interfaith: Shared Spaces and Shared Beliefs