FACULTY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY | Conference
Urban Humanities Symposium: How Do We Learn About the Urban?

Friday 11 April, 09:00 - 17:00
Niagara, A0407, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1 11
Apr

The Institute for Urban Research at Malmö University invites practitioners from diverse communities of practice to a full-day exploration of urban humanities—both as a field of study and as an opportunity. This gathering brings together people from different backgrounds to examine how we learn about cities, whether through art, planning, research, or everyday experience, and to imagine new ways of collaborating in the future.

Programme

The programme is designed to be more than just a series of talks—it is a space for conversation, reflection, and exchange. Participants will have time to pause, think, and share their perspectives, moving between presentations and roundtable discussions where they can connect their work with shared questions about how we understand and shape urban life.

This symposium is part of the IUR’s ongoing commitment to urban humanities and its vision of building an Urban Humanities Hub—a place for dialogue and collaboration among those invested in the urban, whether through research, practice, or lived experience.

How to participate

Participation is free of charge. Please register by 28 March by contacting Robert Nilsson Mohammadi.

Picture: Metro dark city by Wayne A. Brown

Symposium programme

Introductions and presentations

9.00 – Welcome and introductions by Carina Listerborn and Robert Nilsson Mohammadi
9.30 – Workshop: Our learning practices

Learning about the urban in praxis

10.00 – Annika Enqvist, Public Art Agency Sweden
10.45 – Anna Wahlstedt and Rena Baledi, ”Beyond Monuments: Public Art, Collective Memory, and Urban Humanities”
11.30 – Roundtable discussion
12.00 – Lunch

On the worldliness of the humanities

13.00 – Ragni Svensson Stringberg: “Urbana bokcaféer som centrum för humanistiskt kunskapsutbyte”
13.45 – Kristoffer Hansson: “Where are the steam?”
14.30 – Roundtable discussion (with coffee)

Humanities Research on the Urban

15.00 – Jason Finch: “Novels, Poems and Plays as Materials for Expanding Urban Knowledge”
15.45 – Gruia Bădescu: “Urban Imaginaries and Memoryscapes: Cities, Ruptures, and Spatial Remakings”