- Date
- Friday 13 Dec 2019, 10:00 - 12:00
- Type
- Symposium
- Room
- C1-2
- Building
- Theil Building
Cities are the quintessential sites for both cultural production and consumption. Since the dawn of time, artists and creatives have had the tendency to flock together, both for producing new products and services, but also for bringing their goods to the market. What is it that makes the city so attractive for producers and consumers? Why have artists and creatives continuously sought to surround themselves with their peers and competitors? How has this changed over time? During this seminar, three researchers will reflect on how the creative industries (in the broadest sense of the word) are woven into the urban fabric in three countries: The UK, US and Germany. Building on Yosha Wijngaarden’s PhD defense, this symposium aims to unpack the different social, economic and symbolic forms of capital creative producers are able to draw from specific urban spatial characteristics.
The symposium will consist of presentations by three researchers, followed by a forum discussion.
Andy C. Pratt (City University London): Andy is an internationally acclaimed expert on the topic of the cultural industries. Since 2013 he is Professor of Cultural Economy at City University. Andy specializes the analysis of the cultural industries in the US, Europe and Japan. This research has two strands. The first focuses on the urban spatial clustering of cultural industries; he is particularly interested in the social and economic dynamics of clustering. The second strand concerns the definition and measurement of employment in the cultural, or creative, industries.
Janet Merkel (TU Berlin): Janet Merkel is Senior Researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin. She is an urban sociologist interested in the mutual relationships and interdependencies between creativity and urban spaces. Her work focuses on creativity as a socio-cultural and socio-material process and brings economic and cultural sociology into urban sociology for a better understanding of creative industries development in cities.
Thomas Calkins (Erasmus University Rotterdam): Thomas has recently joined ESHCC as a Postdoctoral Researcher. His research interests include social inequality, taste, music consumption, and urban change. He obtained his PhD from University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 2018. His dissertation examines the persistent and vanished record stores of Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee, between 1970 and 2010.
The symposium is chaired by Erik Hitters (Erasmus University Rotterdam).