“Relicts of the Ancien Régime – Socialist & Imperial Legacies and the City”

The workshop is organized by David Leupold and Maria Neff and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the framework of the research project “Vergangene Zukunftsbilder? – Leben und Nachleben der sozialistischen Stadt der Zukunft” in Zentralasien und im Südkaukasus (2021-currently).

In the workshop “Relicts of the Ancien Régime – Socialist & Imperial Legacies and the City” we want to explore together with the William H. Sewell Jr Distinguished University Professor of History Ronald G. Suny (University of Michigan) and international participants how materializations of past polities – from the bygone empires of Habsburg and the Ottomans to the now defunct regimes of state socialism – continue to shape experiences with urbanity in the present. Proposing to understand these materializations as relicts of the ancien régime, the workshop strives to explore the totality of remains – both physical and immaterial – that have survived the demise of the very political entities to which they owe their existence. We are thrilled to welcome you all at our venue in Berlin, the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, to explore the themes of the workshop in a vast and versatile geography encompassing Armenia, Croatia, Germany, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Turkey, Romania, Russia and Ukraine – blending together conceptual prisms and analytical perspectives from the fields of architecture, anthropology, sociology, history and urban planning.