The biennial Dissertation Colloquium brings together a select group of doctoral students from diverse institutional and disciplinary backgrounds working on dissertation topics related to the history, theory, and criticism of American architecture, urbanism, and landscape. 

The Buell Conference on the History of Architecture brings together scholars in architectural and urban history to discuss topics in architecture, urbanism, and modernity as broadly understood.

May 1-2, 2000

A two-day cross-disciplinary workshop dedicated to thinking about a set of emergent social and cultural problematics related to what William James called "things in the making." What is the potential of pragmatist thought to address these issues of our time? Alternatively or additionally, what other perspectives or critical strategies might be brought to bear on them?

 

May 1

Introductory Remarks
Casey Nelson Blake
Joan Ockman
John Rajchman

Session 1: The Public
How might we rethink/reconstruct the relationship between private and public life today? between public life and democracy? If a public sphere is essential to any conception of democracy, should our model of democracy be consensual? contestatory? something else?
Speakers:
Rosalyn Deutsche
Kenneth Frampton
Gerald Frug
Chantal Mouffe

Moderator: Gwendolyn Wright

Session 2: Geographies of Citizenship
Are new forms of "citizenship" arising today that transcend national boundaries? How should we rethink issues of identity, rights, and civic responsibilities in the context of globalization and deterritorialization?
Speakers:
Teresa Caldiera
Saskia Sassen
Sandhya Shukla
Mabel Wilson

Moderator: Andreas Huyssen

Session 3: The Past / The Future
Do classic narratives of the twentieth century need to be rewritten? Is the "American Century" over? How should the past be reimagined? How should we imagine the future?
Speakers:
Jean-Louis Cohen
David Lapoujade
Nadia Urbinati

Moderator: Andres Stephanson

Session 4: Aesthetics / Experience
Evening Event
DJ Spooky
Richard Shusterman
Bernard Tschumi

 

May 2

Session 5: Technologies / Techniques / Perception  
How are questions of perception, experience, and knowledge to be rethought in light of accelerating technological change? How are scientific methodologies to be restructured in light of new logics of organization, information, and temporality? How are changing relations between knowledge and power to be analyzed?
Speakers:
Jonathan Crary
Manuel De Landa
Peter Galison
Liz Grosz
Brian Massumi

Moderator: Reinhold Martin

Session 6: Place
How can we best address the new problems of place emerging today? How can a sense of community be sustained within contemporary urban and "posturban" settings?
Speakers:
William Leach
Hashim Sarkis
Richard Sennett
Abdou Maliq Simone

Moderator: Okwui Enwezor

Session 7: Social Life and the Everyday World
What might a pragmatist city look like? What types of interactions, what forms of participation and spectatorship would it foster? How might everyday places like airports, train stations, subways, streets - and the internet - get transformed?
Speakers:
Stanley Aronowitz
Marshall Berman
Sandra Buckley
Isaac Joseph
Martha Rosler

Moderator: Mary McLeod

Concluding Discussion