This conference will explore the history of non-metropolitan urban settings during the early-modern and modern eras (1500-present). Its purpose is to define the history of small cities as a distinctive subject of inquiry within the larger field of urban studies.
The conference organizers expect a common set of questions to unite the diverse scholarship presented at the conference. Most fundamentally, the papers should in some fashion explain how and why the distinctive spatial, social, cultural, political and/or economic characteristics of small cities mattered. How have these different arrangements contoured the way small-city residents have experienced major social, economic, and cultural changes, including the rise of a European-driven exploration and trade after 1500, imperialism, industrialization, and the increasingly rapid flow of people, goods, and information during the past two centuries? What did the presence of these cities on the edges rather than the center of economic, cultural, migratory, and political networks mean for the people who lived in them and moved to them? How did residents of these cities define their communities in relation to the metropolis? Does the prevailing assumption that smaller communities have been more communally-oriented, closed, and conservative in comparison to large cities hold up under close scrutiny?
Rather than simply impose an arbitrary population range, the organizers of the conference will leave the precise definition of a small city open. We seek papers that examine a city or cities occupying secondary and tertiary roles in urban systems, communities that in economic and cultural terms have been forced to respond to developments emanating from major urban centers. In some cases these communities may be relatively large—over 100,000—and in others considerably smaller.
Proposals for individual papers as well as full panels (preferably two papers) are welcome.
The call for papers deadline is October 1, 2006.
Full papers will be precirculated and must be submitted by February 16, 2007.
Conference Dates: April 5-7, 2007.
Director, Center for Middletown Studies
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306 Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
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