CFP: The Flaneur in Modernity (5/8/05; MSA, 11/3/06-11/6/05)

The Flâneur in Modernity

Traditional theories of the flâneur claim that the 19th century
urban figure disappeared after the threats of mechanization made his
pedestrian strolling an impossibility. However, arguments can be
made against this supposed extinction; twentieth century incarnations
of the flâneur, particularly in modernist literature and art, continue
to be cited and challenge conventional definitions of what it means
to practice flânerie. This panel seeks papers that take up the topic
of the flâneur and his or her presence in a wide variety of
interdisciplinary realms: literature, visual art, urban studies, film.

Some questions to consider for this topic are:
- How does the 20th century flâneur alter standard definitions of the figure
in terms of political or social identity, behavior, or sensual engagement
with the world?
- How do particular modes of aesthetic intervention in modernity represent
flânerie in its contemporary contexts and spaces?
- What happens to the very conditions of flânerie - visibility and mobility –
when the body is prohibitive, marginalized, or else, alienated from itself?
- How might the damaged and vulnerable flâneur of twentieth century
world-historical events resist the domination and shocks of daily living?
- Can the flâneur maintain and practice his hallmark imaginative gaze and gait
in a city of increasingly abstract and rational space?

Please send an abstract of 300-500 words to Monika Gehlawat
(monika7_at_uclink.berkeley.edu) by May 8, 2005.

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Received on Sun May 08 2005 - 08:37:06 EDT