Cityscapes in Orhan Pamuk’s Oeuvre
PhD project, Uzma Ansari (2012-16)
This project focuses on the depiction of urban spaces in the novels of Orhan Pamuk in the light of Islamic Theosophy, which is a neo-platonic philosophy of Sufism giving a transcendentalist and also alternative critical perspective of modernity. The project analyses Pamuk’s unique descriptions of urban life and urban spaces, highlighting Sufic motifs and juxtaposing them with modern urban culture as portrayed by Pamuk in the Turkish context.
Contemporary Urban Experience in Beirut
PhD project, Judith Naeff (2011-15)
This project investigates the post-civil-war development of the city as produced by and the product of lived experience. Representations of and critical responses to the built environment in works of art and literature will direct an exploration of various aspects of Beirut’s urban experience.
Creative Migrants and The City
Embedded researcher project, Boukje Cnossen (2013-2014)
This research project investigates how urban incubator spaces in Amsterdam facilitate globally migrating artists and designers. In particular, the project examines the interrelations of the infrastructures provided by incubator spaces, the practices and motivations of the so-called “creative migrants†taking residency there, and the potential of these space to connect local creative ecosystems to globalizing cultural networks.
Deciphering the Cultural Palimpsest of New Amsterdam
PhD project, Artyom Anikin (2012-16)
This project examines the geographical, cultural, and monumental traces of New Amsterdam by analyzing Lower Manhattan as a type of palimpsest, and examining the concept of the palimpsest as a framework for viewing urban space.
Hackable Metropolis Amsterdam
CIRCA Project, Martijn de Waal in collaboration with The Mobile City, One Architecture and Cristina Ampatzidou (2013-14)
The aim of this project is to complement the smart city approach with a new framework that takes the ‘public interest’ (res publica) as its point of departure in the assessment, policy and design of urban media technologies.
Non-Visibility and the Politics of Presence: A Spatial Analysis of Contemporary Iran
PhD project, Pedram Dibazar (2012-16)
This project investigates the inter-relations of concepts of non-visibility, security, human development, public and private, sphere of presence, youth habitus, mobility, everyday life and resistance in the context of Tehran, its lived environment and cinematic representations.
Planning, Public Space and Identity in Latinoamerica
PhD Project, Alejandra Espinosa (2013-17)
This project analyzes the methodologies used in Latin American public space planning processes. It explores innovative public space planning proposals that consider and assume a cultural and local identity approach. Some central questions of the research are: On what kind of epistemological perspectives and idea of “development†are such planning processes based? Which parameters and notions of human being do they predispose? How do notions of culture and identity inform the planning of public space in Latin America?
Salvaging the City: A Salvagepunk Approach to the Problems of the Global City
PhD project, Tijmen Klous (2013-17)
This project explores alternative approaches to the problems of the global city, drawing from literature, film, art and urban studies. Specifically, the project will analyse the potential of the concepts of reappropriation and salvagepunk to issues of spatial justice, the rights of the urban citizen and the role of the (sub-)community in the neoliberal global city
The Global Financial Crisis and the City: Narratives, Myth and the Urban Imaginary
PhD project, Miriam Meissner (2011-15)
This project is about the narrativization of the late 2000s financial crisis in film, literature and journalistic photography. In particular, the project explores the role of cities and urban aesthetics in narratives of the global financial crisis.
Visual Culture and Interruption in Global Cities
AHRC-NWO research network, coordinated by Christoph Lindner and Shirley Jordan (2012-14)
This network brings together an international team of interdisciplinary scholars to focus on the ways in which visual culture strategically intervenes in contemporary urban spaces and communities to interrupt processes and conditions of globalization.