[URBANTH-L] CFP: There Goes the Neighborhood? University Entrepreneurialism,the City, and Urban Development

[Eliot Tretter]

CFP: There Goes the Neighborhood? University Entrepreneurialism, the City,
and Urban Development

 16th Annual Mini-Conference on Critical Geography The University of Georgia
in Athens, October 23 and 24, 2009


This panel session will critically explore the relationship between
universities and the cities in which they are located.  While universities
have long engaged in space- and place- making, these
processes in recent years seem to have become actively wrapped up in a turn
toward academic and urban entrepreneurialism.  In cooperation with real
estate developers and government officials, universities have spent
increasing amounts of time and resources on the careful management of their
neighboring urban fabric in order to strengthen their market positions.  The
branding of the university - the production of the ways it looks and feels
and of the associations it evokes - has resulted in significant consequences
to both cities and universities. Building upon some of the recent work of
scholars to understand these processes, this session will provide a forum
for interrogating the past, present, and potential roles universities play
in urban life.  Specific topics of discussion may include:
-      Urban campuses and gentrification
-      "Studentification" of urban neighborhoods
-      Rights to the city and the university
-      Security and the urban campus
-      University branding and place-making
-      Blurring of campus borders and the political geographies of race
and racism
-      Exporting the US urban campus model
-      Strategies of resistance and alternative geographies of higher
education

If you are interested in participating in this session, please send an
email describing your potential contributions to Eliot Tretter (
etretter at mail.utexas.edu).