T2M 20TH CONFERENCE WITH MOHU CENTRE

Dal 21.09.2022 al 24.09.2022

Mobilities: Disruptions and Reconnections

T2M 20th Annual Conference

Padua (Italy), 21-24 September 2022

jointly organized by the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility & Humanities

Over the last few decades, awareness of the existence of globalization’s “waves” has increasingly invited transport and mobility scholars to wonder about the processes of rupture and reconnection, of which the COVID-19 pandemic is only one of many examples. Wars and epidemics, natural disasters and geopolitical scenarios have contributed to shaping and adapting not only the phenomena of mobility, but also the ways in which the various mobilities have been theorized, practiced, and experienced.

We are therefore faced with a propitious moment to interrogate the future processes of reconstruction of mobility: What are the elements that characterize major ruptures, in the past and in the present? Which elements show greater resilience in the recomposition and rearrangement processes across societies, economies, institutions and cultures? How do ideas, information and texts circulate, and what role do they play in defining the imagination and practices of mobility?

Thanks to the mobilities paradigm, it is now possible to look at the extension of phenomena attributable to mobility, understood here in a broad sense as the circulation of people, objects, ideas and texts. Furthermore, taking a cue from the recent theorization of a humanistic turn in mobility studies, we are invited to look at a broad spectrum of mobility in the past and present, from antiquity to the present day, combining humanities and social sciences in a broad space and time perspective.

The conference invited proposals from different disciplines within mobility studies including, but not limited to: history, geography, anthropology, literary studies, visual studies, communication, architecture, urban planning. We accepted proposals for papers and sessions on many topics/areas of study, such as: Historical turning points in the practices and perceptions of mobility; Epistemological shifts in theorizing movement, transport and mobility; Humanistic and comparative approaches to the study of mobility; Mobility and environmental history; Mobility in digital spaces; Pandemics and its social/cultural effects on transport and mobility; Commodity chains and labour mobility; Ruptures of mobility, immobility and social inequality; Mobility and international relations/tensions; Mobility as reception/influence in intellectual and cultural history; Visual and narrative (re)mediations of transport and mobility phenomena; Art and creative connections with transport and mobility studies; Tourism, leisure and everyday mobilities; Objects, technologies, materials and non-human mobilities; Mobilities and heritage: past and future (dis)connections; Humanistic perspectives in mobility and the climate crisis.

 Programme and info: www.mobilityandhumanities.it/t2m2022conference/

 Contact: t2m2022.conference@unipd.it