by Tze-ki Hon
We are looking for authors to contribute to an edited volume, tentatively entitled “Space as Signifier: The Cityscapes of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei during the Cold War.” The goal of this volume is to compare the meanings of landscape in three Asian cities during the Cold War (1947-1991). The comparison is to highlight both the common identity of these three cities as frontiers of Cold War rivalry and their differences that resulted from their specific historical and cultural contexts.
Focusing on the notion of cityscape (or the landscape of a city), this volume will show how space is deployed as a signifier. To us, space is not only concrete or fixed like land, place, and territory; it is also a symbol of power that conditions human thinking, behavior, and way of life. During the Cold War, the design of cityscape was particularly potent in meaning, because it was a tool to win hearts and minds in the global ideological rivalry.
Viewing the Cold War through the lens of spatial configuration, this volume offers a unique perspective on how space in city was the site of inclusion and exclusion, delineation and negotiation, transition and transgression in the global confrontation between the Free World and the Communist World. The volume also relates spatial use and urban planning to the changing politics and discursive conditions that affect memories. It is thus as much interested in explaining the different signifiers of space as it is in identifying the transformations in domestic and global politics that gave rise to what we may call a (shared) Cold War memory-scape.
We have commissioned several scholars to write chapters for the volume, but we have space to include a few additional chapters. If you are interested in writing for this volume, please send us your c.v. and an abstract (500 words) by April 30, 2021 to Tze-ki Hon (t.k.hon@cityu.edu.hk) and Ying-kit Chan (y.k.chan@iias.nl).
Contact Info: Contact Tze-ki Hon (t.k.hon@cityu.edu.hk) and Ying-kit Chan (y.k.chan@iias.nl). Contact Email: t.k.hon@cityu.edu.hk URL: https://www.cah.cityu.edu.hk/academic-staff