A special issue of Urban History on Cold War Cities

Call for Papers: A special issue of Urban History on Cold War Cities

Co-editors:

Matthew Farish

Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Toronto

farish@geog.utoronto.ca

David Monteyne

Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary

d.monteyne@ucalgary.ca

            Cold War history is not yet an urban history. Cities remain mere backdrops for the actors, strategies, and technologies of the Cold War. The relationship between Cold War geopolitics and urban spaces, or simply the urban contexts for many of the Cold War’s pivotal conflicts, both remain largely unexamined. The one exception, to date, is a rich vein of cultural and architectural history, history of science, and historical geography, on American cities – with a particular emphasis on civil defence, fallout shelters, and what Laura McEnaney (Civil Defense Begins at Home, 2000) calls “the militarization of everyday life.” And yet even this literature is not always rooted in specific urban landscapes. Instead, it often takes ‘the city’ as a frame through which to study American cold war culture or national initiatives such as civil defence.

            This proposed special issue of Urban History has three objectives: to draw stronger links between urban history and the international history of the Cold War; to do so through a set of papers that includes but extends far beyond American case studies; and to carefully consider the urban dimensions of the Cold War. We seek papers that address one or more of the following questions:

1.      In what broad sense was the Cold War, as a ‘conflict’, an urban phenomenon? What was -- and what made -- a Cold War city?

2.      Can we expand the rich cultural, architectural, and planning history of the Cold War, largely focused on the United States and the 1950s, to other times and places?

3.      Can we expand the rich histories of Cold War science and technology, largely place-less or focused on laboratories and military facilities, to urban settings?

4.      Can we do more to root “the militarization of everyday life” in specific urban contexts, and specific landscapes?

5.      Can we connect the complex social, economic, political, and cultural histories of the Cold War to specific urban histories?

6.      Given the current interest in international histories of the Cold War, can we craft international, transnational, or comparative histories of Cold War cities?

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to both farish@geog.utoronto.ca and d.monteyne@ucalgary.ca by no later than March 22, 2013. Up to ten authors (or groups of authors) will be invited to submit papers for the standard Urban History review process, with a tentative deadline of January 17, 2014. The special issue will be published in 2015.