ASMCF Conference 2019: The Transnational City

Text courtesy of the University of London Institute in Paris.

Gathering in Paris to mark its 40th anniversary and co-organized and hosted by the University of London Institute in Paris and the American University of Paris, the ASMCF annual conference will bring together a range of papers and keynote interventions that will critically examine the transformation of the French-speaking world through the lens of the ever-greater influence, density and diversity of urban centres in the world.

Since the creation of the ASMCF, the world’s overall urban population has grown exponentially and certain cities, including Paris, have confirmed or consolidated their pre-eminence, becoming geo-political actors beyond the sphere of the nation-state, in parallel and potentially in competition with other international organizations. Changing and accelerating patterns of migration have also transformed the demographics of contemporary cities, complicating post-colonial dynamics with new forms of neo-colonial relations of dependency and exchange. Meanwhile, within the national sphere, the relative dynamism of urban centres has led some commentators to point to newly stark configurations of inequality that have had significant impact not just on domestic politics (the rise of far-right and nationalist movements, the Gilets jaunes movement, and also growing expressions of independence led by municipal authorities of issues relating to urban ecologies and tourism), but also on varied dimensions of cultural production.

Reflecting this anniversary moment in the history of the ASMCF, the conference also aims to address how the growth of the transnational city has impacted on the objects and structures of research in modern and contemporary French Studies, and to what extent this reflects changes in the landscape of higher education. Led by our three key-note speakers, we will engage with how the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity within cities is transforming the levers of social change and cultural transmission. Ranging across the ways in which historical, cultural and symbolic capital has contributed to the emergence of the city as transnational ‘scene’ (festivals, biennials, sporting events, museums, policy conventions) to the new forms of cultural expression that particularly reflect the increasing complexity and significance of urban life, the conference programme reflects the ever greater diversity of our objects and scales of analysis within Modern and Contemporary French Studies.

Registration will begin at 1pm on Wednesday, 4 September and the conference will close at 5pm on Friday, 6 September.

The key-note lectures are programmed as follows:

• Wednesday 4th September, 2pm: Danielle Wozny, Vice-Présidente Maisons de la sagesse-Traduire 
• Thursday 5th September, 11.45am: Fabien Truong, Paris 8/CRESPPA-CSU
• Friday 6th September, 2pm: Françoise Gadet, Université de Paris-Nanterre

Find out more on the ULIP website