Ideas about the origins and context for the flâneur have been tied to Paris, and viewed through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. While Benjaminian orthodoxy has increasingly been challenged, the association of the flâneur with modernity and European cities has continued to dominate studies of its variant forms. This conference aims to de-centre the concept and expand such critique by identifying and analysing forms of pedestrian observation in the early modern period taking note of the fact that strolling, seeing and being seen—and walking the city—emerged well before Europe and the 19^th century in urban experiences in cities like Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi and Beijing.

Presentation

Ideas about the origins and context for the flâneur have been tied to Paris, and viewed through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. While Benjaminian orthodoxy has increasingly been challenged, the association of the flâneur with modernity and European cities has continued to dominate studies of its variant forms. This conference aims to de-centre the concept and expand such critique by identifying and analysing forms of pedestrian observation in the early modern period taking note of the fact that strolling, seeing and being seen—and walking the city—emerged well before Europe and the 19^th century in urban experiences in cities like Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi and Beijing.

Programme

Please note that the conference takes place at The Courtauld’s Vernon Square campus

FRIDAY, November 15, 2019

16:30 – 17:00 Registration 

17:00-17:30 Opening remarks: Sussan Babaie and Richard Wrigley

17:30 – 18:30

• Keynote Address: Modalities of urban experience and a lexicon of vision: Walking-viewing early modern Istanbul Professor Çiğdem Kafescioğlu (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul) 

18:30 – 19:30 Drinks reception

SATURDAY, November 16, 2019,

9:30 – 17:00

9:00-9:30am: Registration

• 9:30-10:00. Aslıhan Aksoy-Sheridan (TED University, Ankara) An Ottoman Armenian flâneur in early modern Istanbul: Eremia Chelebi Komurjian capturing the seventeenth-century Ottoman capital    
• 10:00-10:30. David Karmon (Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts) Pavements and pedestrian movement in the Renaissance: Venice and Rome
• 10:30-11:00. Saundra Weddle (Drury University, Springfield, Missouri) Visualizing and mobilizing sex work on Venice’s canals
• 12:00-12:30. Peyvand Firouzeh (University of Sydney) Walking Yazd: Historicism, urban planning, and imperial connectivity
• 12:30-13:00. Nuno Grancho (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, ISCTE-IUL) Spatial mobility in the early modern colonial city of Diu
• 14:30-15:00. Marika Takanishi Knowles (University of St Andrews) A guide to walking in Yoshiwara (1678): Hishikawa Moronobu’s flâneur
• 15:00-15:30 Marie Yasunaga (University of Amsterdam) Exploring urban space of Edo through Hasegawa Settan’s illustrations of Edo Meisho Zue
• 16:00-16:30 Concluding remarks: Stephen Whiteman (Courtauld Institute of Art)