NYIT Fourth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference:
"New York: City Divided"
March 7, 2008
“New York: Divided Metropolis,” will address the ways in which New York has been and remains a divided city. Scholars from a range of disciplines will gather to discuss this theme from the perspective of streetscapes, race, class, environment, and culture. Our keynote speaker this year, David Harvey, is perhaps one of the most important scholars on the theme of divided cities. In his keynote address, he will consider the many ways in which New York City remains a divided metropolis. Professor Harvey, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the City University of New York, is the author of many books including The Condition of Postmodernity, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, and Paris, Capital of Modernity.
Schedule (Tentative)
9 a.m. Welcome and introduction of keynote speaker
9:15 a.m. Keynote address, David Harvey
10:30 a.m. Panel discussions
Panel 1: Divided Streets
“The Violent and Most Profane Class of Society”: An Examination of Those Who
Frolicked, Rioted, and Thieved Their Way Through Corlears Hook in the Early 19th Century.
Thomas Beal, State University of New York at Oneonta
“Street Vending, Privatization, and the Political Fight for Space”
Ryan Thomas Devlin, University of California-Berkeley
“East Broadway is So Dirty: Funzhounese Youthscapes in Lower Manhatttan’s Chinatown”
Winnie Tam Hung, University of California-Davis
Panel 2: Divided Races and Classes
“Riven Souls: City College as Both a Bridge and Contested Terrain”
Philip Kay, Columbia University
“Separating Wheat from Chaff: The Tenant Selection Process of the New York
City Housing Authority”
Nicholas Dagen Bloom, New York Institute of Technology
“The Bronx is a Bomb and It’s Ready to Explode: The Politics of Civil Rights in Bronx
Neighborhoods”
Brian Purnell, Fordham University
Noon Lunch (provided by NYIT)
12:30 Panel discussion: “New York’s New Gilded Age” (participants TBA)
2 p.m. Panel discussions
Panel 3: Divided Environments
“New York’s Fringe Circa 1885: William Merrit Chase’s Paintings of Suburban Brooklyn”
James Glisson, Northwestern University
Cleaning Up to Move On Up: Environmentalism and Gentrification in Williamsburg-
Greenpoint
Winifred Curran, DePaul University
“Thin Walls: An Ethnography of my Apartment Building”
Benjamin Tausig, New York University
Panel 4: Divided Cultures
“The British are Coming! The British are Coming! The Rise of an American Oxford
University Press”
Thorin Tritter, University of London
“The Well-Tempered Robert Moses”
Timothy Mennel, University of Minnesota
“Divided and Inverted: New York in David Wonjarowicz’s Sex Series, 1998”
Andrew Hershberger, Bowling Green State University
Registration
To register, please e-mail Nicholas Dagen Bloom your name, institutional affiliation, and return e-mail address. Although registration is free, please register only if plan on attending.
Directions
The conference will be held at NYIT's Manhattan campus on the 11th floor of the New Technology Building, 16 W. 61st St. Click here for directions.
Conference Organizers
Chair: Nicholas Dagen Bloom
Committee: Lori Jirousek, Gary Stephens, Terry Nauheim, Ranja Roy, Elizabeth Donaldson, Nader Vossoughian
Click here for the 2007 conference Web site.