OPEN CALL FOR ENTRIES    Cosmopolitanism as a mode of practice and competence involves the ability of individuals to navigate different cultures and their respective systems of meanings. Yet rarely is the role that place plays explicitly considered as being crucial for the emergence of this mode of practice and competence to occur, develop and be nurtured.  Hence, though cosmopolitanism does not happen in a vacuum, it is usually abstracted from everyday life and usually associated with elite traveling across several borders.   Alternatively, this year call intends to solicit films that look at very localized forms of cosmopolitanism and tell stories of everyday experiences of cosmopolitanism as they occur in our everyday spaces and places. Cosmopolis at the Grassroots asks for films that raise awareness of the inevitably increasing diverse social and built environment we live in -a view from the grassroots- as to document and value the everyday creative efforts towards the making of Cosmopolis of familiar places where we, all of us, can be at home.   In an innovative way toward mutual learning, this event, an intersection between a film festival and a conference, explores the potential applications of film as one of the most ideal formats through which we can understand people’s relations with place. Different from an usual film festival, it is not only themed, but  also hosts a keynote speaker who will give an introductory lecture, and the filmmakers are invited to discuss extensively their work during the Q&A session. Yet, though following this conference format, instead of asking for papers, we call for films and videos as visual essays on this year theme.   This event reaches out to scholars, teachers, students and practitioners alike who are searching for alternative methods to conventional data analysis and academic writing to create, investigate, manage, and disseminate knowledge.   On how to submit, please visit: www.diversityinplace.org   Deadline March 1, 2011   This initiative is led by Vera Zambonelli, Associate Director of the Filmmaking for Social Research Program at the Globalization Research Center, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.   Fur further info, please contact us: diversityinplace@gmail.com

The lexical-political research group on space and place, based in Tel Aviv University, is part of the "Political Lexicon" project  - http://mhc.tau.ac.il/en/?cat=4 The group consists of scholars from various fields, such as geography, architecture, philosophy, arts and more. It aims to develop a critical and creative discussion of the concepts used in the current political discourse and to create an open political lexicon that will examine the foundational concepts of national and neo-liberal political thought and that will expand the horizons of political discussion from a various spatial dimensions. Selected works are published in the online bilingual (Hebrew-English)  journal "Mafteakh" (key, in Hebrew) - http://mafteakh.tau.ac.il/en/   Attached is the Call for Papers for Mafteakh. Scholars and artists are invited to submit their works.   The online journal Mafte’akh, published bi-annually in two editions, one Hebrew and one English, is a lexicon in the making. The journal intends to develop a critical and creative discussion of the concepts used in the current political discourse, which is based on directions of thought that were developed in the twentieth century within continental philosophy or inspired by it. Mafte’akh aims to create an open political lexicon that will examine the foundational concepts of national and neo-liberal political thought and that will expand the horizons of political discussion. The boundaries of the political will not be predetermined, but rather, will arise from the compilation of entries and the conceptual network that will develop between them.   The lexical essays included in Mafte’akh do not concentrate on thinkers, methods or certain texts but on concepts. These concepts may be taken from the familiar philosophical dictionary (such as: liberty, equality, rights, justice and so on) or they may express different and original ways of viewing government and the political (such as: space, time, body, feeling, technology, population and so on). One may also turn into concepts devices (e.g., camera, screen, magnetic card) and institutions (e.g., police, school), sites and places (e.g. house, fence, Jerusalem) or events (e.g. May 68),as long as they form the basis for an original point of view on government and the political.   Each essay in the journal is dedicated to one concept. To a certain degree, the essay should take note of the history of the concept  and express awareness of its historicity, but it should also go further and present a systematic and innovative answer to the question "what is X?", meaning, what is it that the concept refers to or envisions. Authors are welcome to invent new concepts or to suggest disposing of existing ones. Presentation and critical discussion of the concept may be anchored in one specific theory or may move freely between several related or competing theories, as long as the focus is on a single concept and the reality it refers to. Mafte’akhis a bilingual journal; the Hebrew edition includes articles translated from other languages, and the English edition includes translations from the Hebrew edition as well as articles that are originally written in English, and will later be translated into Hebrew Each year two issues will be published in each language  Submitting an article in one language is considered a submission to both editions  Submitted articles are sent for peer-review and are edited by a group of graduate students (in the format customary in law journals) under supervision of senior faculty members  Articles and responses to them can be submitted to the following address: mafteakh@post.tau.ac.il Texts must be submitted in Word format only  Notes in the texts must be in the form of endnotes  Images must be sent separately (while noting their exact location in the text)  The principles guiding the editing of the journal are detailed in the preface of the first issue. The issue can be read and downloaded as a PDF file at: http://mafteakh.tau.ac.il/en/2010-01/00-preface‫/‬   Mafte’akh is published by the Lexicon Group for Political Thought, The Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University: http://mhc.tau.ac.il/en/

With the proliferation of means of movement and communication, and with the lure of always being elsewhere, we are continuously torn from the here and now. Hop on an intercity or commuter train, pick up a telephone — in order to be already gone. Such mobility only ever means uprootedness, isolation, exile. It would be insufferable if it weren’t always the mobility of a private space, of a portable interior. The private bubble doesn’t burst, it floats around. The process of cocooning is not going away, it is merely being put into motion. From a train station, to an office park, to a commercial bank, from one hotel to another, there is everywhere a foreignness, a feeling so banal and habitual it becomes the last form of familiarity." ————The Coming Insurrection “There is in truth nothing progressive at all in a ‘laissez faire’ approach to migration which relies for its logic on an extreme neo-liberal position that people should fight ‘dog eat dog’ for economic opportunities wherever they can find them in an unregulated global economy. A new fairer world economic order is not going to be built on this approach. Neither is it persuasive to take the line that because developed, former imperialist powers like the UK have helped to create such an unjust world, mass migration would solve the problem...It is through the pursuit of trade justice, improved governance and economic redistribution that a fairer world will be achieved, not through huge disorganised movements of people.” ————Is the progressive case for migration truly progressive?   “The forthcoming enlargement of the European Union to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe makes it necessary to examine these projects [that "make a big contribution to the mobility of artists, be they students or teachers, in the Community"] and in any event prompts reflection on how to ward off the adverse consequences of the social dumping currently witnessed and involving the nationals of some of these countries. A problem unanimously condemned by the persons interviewed.” ————Study of the Mobility and Free Movement of People and Products in the Cultural Sector   This project is for anyone interested in engaging with the dragons that dwell at the intersections of place, mobility, communication and identity.

PLACE (ISSN 1835-8799) was an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, which published an annual volume from 2007 to 2009, dedicated to the scholarly analysis of place from the point of view of such fields as philosophy, human and cultural geography, archaeology, anthropology, spatial history, the history of art and architecture, urban studies, architecture and planning, and musicology. List of all published articles: Volume 3, 2009: Alicia Marchant, "Consuming Provence"  Robert Mihajlovski, "THE VIA EGNATIA: National identity, cultural fault lines, space and place along the Via Egnatia" Caterina Sciacca, "Rome, by all means Rome: The Print Collection of Thomas Ashby at the British School at Rome" Volume 2, 2008: Alicia Marchant, "'In Loco Amoenissimo’: Fifteenth-Century St Albans and the Role of Place in Thomas Walsingham’s Description of Wales Volume 1, 2007: Katrina Grant, "The Gardens of Lucca" Hugh Hudson, "Monument of Florence, Real and Imagined, in the Early Renaissance: The Development of Single-Point Perspective in Painting" Zoë Willis, "Building a Myth: Dalmatia and the Conundrum of Venetian Imperial Identity" Hugh Hudson, "From Via della Scala to the Cathedral: Social Spaces and the Visual Arts in Paolo Uccello’s Florence" General Editors Susan Broomhall, The University of Western Australia   Chris Wood, Australians Studying Abroad   PLACE International Advisory Board Joan Barclay Lloyd School of Historical and European Studies (Art History) La Trobe University Anthony Bonanno Department of Classics & Archaeology University of Malta Martin Forsey School of Social and Cultural Studies (Anthropology & Sociology) The University of Western Australia Tibor Frank School of English and American Studies Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary Michael Given Department of Archaeology University of Glasgow Jenny Gregory School of Humanities (History) The University of Western Australia J.E. Malpas School of Philosophy University of Tasmania C.R. Pennell School of Historical Studies University of Melbourne Sarah Pink Department of Social Sciences (Sociology) Loughborough University Bronwyn Stocks Department of Theory of Art & Design Monash University Nikki T. Tarulevicz Department of History Cleveland State University David Trigger School of Social Science University of Queensland David Wood Faculty of Humanities Curtin University of Technology

Learning Landscapes is a primary level schools project which engages learners in regular outdoor experiences exploring their locality.  It has been run with five schools in North Argyll, Scotland.  The pupils, teacher and facilitator have a series of days in the outdoors, looking at different aspects of a place: ecology, geology, history, land use etc.  Different methods are used from scientific study, to poetry, drawing, and story telling.  The project is integrated into the classroom as the pupils write up, expand and research their days out. The project culminates in a community event, where parents, land-owners and local community members see what the pupils have been up to.

Starting a Project: The process for submitting a Project is almost identical to an Article, the difference really comes down to the content. Where an article can be any document related to place, Projects are more designed and orientated to a group of people with some common interest.   To start a project: Hover your mouse over the Project tab in the navigation bar and you’ll be presented with 3 options: Create an Project Your Project All Projects. Clicking Create an Project will take you to the project submission page, from here you can: Select an image to upload Fill in the articles ‘Title’ and Input a ‘slug’ which will form part of the dynamic URL for your Project. In the next section ‘Description’, you can write and edit your projects description as you like the same as you would in any other word processor. Or choose to edit it inside the 'source' using basic html codes by clicking Source, in the top right corner All that’s left now is to hit ‘Create’ and you’ve just published your first project on the place network.

Writing the Earth is a new online discussion space and resource.   The aim of this site is to increase dialogue between disciplines in a open and relaxed manner. The site has a particular focus on looking at the ways in which research and projects in the areas of art, architecture and geography relate to one another. Please contribute to building this online resource by sharing your work and thoughts and encourage this conversation between these areas and ways of thinking.  Contributions can be as in depth or as general as necessary, and ideally will be addressing the relationship between aspects within art, architecture and geography. A variety of formats and subjects are encouraged, such as: work-in-progress projects and papers published academic papers and finished projects advertisements of related events, such as conferences calls for contribution or help to your own work reviews of all types items of interest, such as a book, online post, quote, object, etc, that you would like to share  any thoughts or questions related to the topic All will help and be a valuable part of this conversation. Looking forward to your contribution. www.writingtheearth.com

The Stony Rises Project explores the complex and interconnected elements that result in the creation of place. Between 2008 and 2010 a team of artists, designers, historians, curators, theorists and scientists have investigated through their individual perspectives and practices, a particular region within the Western District of Victoria, Australia. , From the land mass to the people and their cultures both past and present, their aim being to make comment on, to reflect, to come to know and to remember what it is that makes a place, a place. Founded in the proposition that through the investigation of one site with its particular features and histories, we can come to many, the curators embarked on adventure known as the Stony Rises Project. The outcomes from this investigation are represented in this site and they include a community, an artist camp, a traveling exhibition and a book.

Designing Place is a beautifully produced book that brings together some of Australia’s foremost artists and intellectuals in a project that investigates the meaning of ‘place’ by focusing on the Western District of Victoria. It is a book that has been supported by the RMIT Design Research Institute. This book was developed in conjunction with the Stony Rises Project.

This project brings together 20 curators, 20 laptops, and 20 places around the world that link up in an online broadcast staged over one weekend in August 2012. The brief given to each curator will be: go to a place or site of significance or story, remotely broadcast an image of that location via a web cam to the designated curators at other sites and then make artwork on site from the images you recieve.   The data transmitted to each participant is then reprocessed by the receiving curator to be then sent as a live 'remixed' still image, evolving a method of proceedual artworks. These sent images are then printed out on site and used somehow in a creative placement within the curators host location and documented. The idea behind this project is to 'curate' places instead of curating artists or images but use the image itself as an intervention of place rather than a mere snapshot of locations. We are still looking for participants outside of Australia so if you would like to know more please email shaun.wilson@rmit.edu.au