Global Urban Humanities/Future Histories Lab

Location: David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA

Date: 4/17/2019 - 4/18/2019

An interdisciplinary symposium on monuments, memorialization, and public space. 

Location: Wurster Gallery (121 Wurster Hall),Berkeley, CA 94720

Date/Time: 10/08/2018, 8:30 am-12 pm

Lively discussions about what works--and what doesn’t--in combining methods from different disciplines in order to investigate cities and urban life was the focus of this symposium. What makes for an effective team-taught, cross-disciplinary course? Does creative practice constitute rigorous research? This symposium dug into five years of work in the GUH Initiative and wasof interest to scholars engaged in interdisciplinary teaching and research. It was a great chance for folks who have been involved in one part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative to learn about the other parts of the elephant.

Location: Bauer Wurster Hall, Berkeley, CA

Date/Time: Friday, October 23, 2015, 8:30AM-6PM

This wide-ranging interdisciplinary symposium examined art, commerce, politics, violence, history, and urban space on both sides of the Pacific. Creative artists and scholars explored contemporary performance, film, art, and activism in Mexico City from the Revolution to today. Ruben Gallo of Princeton University gave a keynote presentation examining the place of ruins in Mexico City imaginaries. Discussions of modern and contemporary culture and politics with leading performers, filmmakers, and scholars followed, including Gaston Alzate, Minerva Cuevas, Michael Dear, Ivonne del Valle, Tatiana Flores, Daniel Hernandez, Edward J. McCaughan, Jesusa Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Rulfo, and Maite Zubiaurre.

As a counterpoint from the other side of the Pacific Rim, Margaret Crawford and Winnie Wong of UC Berkeley presented an exhibition on current art and urbanism in China’s dynamic Pearl River Delta, manufacturer to the world of both smartphones and mass-produced Van Goghs. Research on contemporary Shanghai by a team from the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative was also presented by Dana Cuff and Jonathan Crisman in a video-based exhibit, and new UC Berkeley publications and websites on participatory urbanisms (focusing on São Paulo and New Delhi) and urban pilgrimage were unveiled.

Location: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA

Date/Time: 11/21/2014, 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

The Public Art/Housing Publics: Conversations on Art and Social Justice Symposium explored innovative collaborations across cultural and social justice sectors. How can we sustain affordable housing and healthy neighborhoods in our communities? How can we sustain a thriving artistic life for our citizens? Most importantly, how can we answer both of these questions together? Timed to coincide with the residency of UC-Berkeley Regents Lecturer, Rick Lowe of Project Row Houses, participants included artists, scholars, civic organizers, and affordable housing developers from around the Bay Area.

Location: Women’s Faculty Club Lounge, UC Berkeley

Date/Time: Friday February 21, 2014, 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

‘Mellon Mashup’ directly confronts these issues in a rapid-fire two-part conversation that begins with a group of visiting scholars who have labored successfully in transdisciplinary borderlands, offering reflections on their project: what worked? what didn’t? what lessons can be offered? Session 1 features a group of visiting scholars who labored successfully to produce a transdisciplinary edited volume called GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place. The editors reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what lessons came out of their project Session 2 assembles a group of innovative Cal-based scholars who consider how these lessons and their own experiences inform the Global Urban Humanities’ adventures in transdisciplinary worlds. Following this, a group of Cal-based scholars consider how these experiences could inform the Global Urban Humanities’ own Adventures in Transdisciplinary Worlds. Graduate students from the class on “The City and its Moving Images: Urban Theory / Media Theory” attended.

Location: Wurster Gallery (121 Wurster Hall),Berkeley, CA 94720

Date/Time: 10/08/2018, 8:30 am-12 pm

On June 11, 2014, participants in the UC Berkeley Global Humanities Initiative and the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative gathered at UCLA’s Perloff Hall to review student projects and reflect on teaching and learning experiences at a symposium called “Anxieties of Interdisciplinarity: Projects in the Urban Humanities.” These are two among of a growing number of initiatives funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in its Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities program, and the UCLA-UC Berkeley teams are meeting for joint symposia about twice a year to share notes and exchange ideas.

Location: David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA

Date/Time: 9/30/2013

Reimagining the Urban was a daylong symposium examining art, nature, economic development and equity in the Bay Area metropolis. Artists, curators, real estate developers, environmentalists and social justice advocates gathered to discuss the uses and abuses of the region’s creative and natural resources.

Location: David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA

Date/Time: 11/1/2013

Is a map a mirror, a window, a weapon, or a work of art?

From lines drawn in clay to geographic information systems (GIS), humans for millenia have constructed an understanding of the world through visual representations of space. At this interdisciplinary symposium, mapmakers, users, and critics from the worlds of science, urban planning, architecture, history, and new media examined the ways maps work.

“Mapping and Its Discontents” was part of the Global Urban Humanities Initiative, a major 3.5-year project supported by the Mellon Foundation. In this joint project, the UCLA Urban Humanities, the College of Environmental Design, and the Division of Arts & Humanities collaborated to bring together scholars and practitioners across disciplines to investigate humans and the environments they inhabit and shape.