The programme of our meeting in Brooklyn has been published - and as always, the list of speakers and topics is amazing! We will not only celebrate the 10th anniversary of our research group but also the official launch of our spectacular Philosophy of the City Journal.
If you want to join us, you can still register. More information can be found on the PotC Research Group's website.
I will also be honourd to deliver my Co-director's Address. Here's the abstract:
Urban Technologies - revisited
I introduced the concept of "urban technologies" in a paper in 2018. The guiding idea was to demarcate the intersection between Philosophy of the City and Philosophy of Technology. In my Co-Director's address, I will revisit the concept by providing a brief overview of the past and current discussions on the interplay between technologies and cities before discussing two aspects of my proposed concept.
The first aspect concerns my understanding of "urban technologies" as a hermeneutical lens rather than an ontological category. That is to say that I would like to avoid defining criteria for something to be an "urban technology." For example, exploring "cars" as urban technologies seems reasonable since they obviously influenced what cities look like today. Yet, obviously, "cars" are not only used in cities. Along these lines, I would like to use an example from my current work on cities and informal settlements in the Global South to ask: Are satellites urban technologies?
The second aspect, which I would like to highlight and discuss, is my proposal to consider something as an urban technology because the technology has been shaped by cities. While I find it plausible and, maybe, even necessary to consider the mutual shaping of cities and (urban) technologies, the mechanisms of how cities shape technologies are far less obvious. Thus, I would like to explore how we can better grasp the multiple ways in which cities play a role in our understanding of technologies.
