Above. Degrees of Elevation
One-day workshop – 12 May 2016
Dreams of reaching the above have animated human beings for millennia, not least showing in the central role of ascension in religious, spiritual and cultural narratives and practices. Next to the continued importance of spiritual and mythological interpretations and connotations of height and elevation, the above has also been connected to ideas of modernity and “progress” in more recent history. Given the significance of non-horizontal spatial dimensions, it is surprising that elevation and verticality have not been a major focus of analysis for scholars working on the construction of space and the urban and rural environment. Only recently have urbanists and geographers begun to break with the dominance of the horizontal and turned to the third dimension of space.
The Workshop “Above. Degrees of Elevation” aims to draw on this recently emerging scholarship on the vertical and to study the relevance of non-horizontal spaces for the constitution of human relations. Bringing together scholars from literature, religious studies, history and urban geography, the workshop particularly stresses the inseparability of material and imaginative aspects of the above and aims to explore the interrelations and the negotiations between them.
Programme
9.30 Registration and Coffee
10.00 Welcome from Jo Shaw (Director, IASH)
10.20 Introductory Remarks. Nicoletta Asciuto, Nina Engelhardt, Susanne Schregel
10.30-12.45 Panel 1: Spiritual Elevation in Religion and Literature
Chair: Nina Engelhardt
Andrew Hass (Religious Studies, Stirling): “Mystical Ascent: From Above and Beyond to Beyond Above” (10.30–11.15)
Nicoletta Asciuto (Literature, Edinburgh/Durham): “‘Into the heart of light’: Mystical Visions in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets” (11.15–12.00)
Adam Shaeffer (Religious Studies, Durham): “Frodo and Saruman: Spiritual Elevation in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings” (12.00–12.45)
12.45-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Panel 2: Heights Material/Technological
Chair: Nicoletta Asciuto
Nina Engelhardt (Literature, Edinburgh/Cologne): “Ascent between Explosion and Grace: High Technology and Imaginary Heights in Thomas Pynchon’s Novels” (14.00–14.45)
Lorenzo Tripodi (Urban Studies/Berlin): “Telescoping the City: Technological Urbiquity, or Perceiving Ourselves from the Above” (14.45–15.30)
15.30-15.45 Coffee Break
15.45-17.15 Panel 3: Vertical Urbanisms
Chair: Susanne Schregel
Martin Dodge (Geography/Manchester): “Verticality and Urban Mobility: Learning Lessons from Past Visions of Elevated Transport Systems in the Post-War City” (15.45–16.30)
Sascha Klein (Literature/Cologne): “The Skyscraper as Vertical Heterotopia in J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise (1975)” (16.30–17.15)
17.15-17.30 Final Discussion
18.00 Dinner
There is no conference fee, and guests are warmly invited.
Please register: Nina.Engelhardt@uni-koeln.de by May 5, 2016.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities was established in 1969 to promote interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences at the University of Edinburgh. It provides an international, interdisciplinary and autonomous space for discussion and debate.
This Workshop has been funded as a Royal Society of Edinburgh Susan Manning Workshop, in memory of IASH’s former Director, Susan Manning. For more information, please see http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/about/introduction.
