To browse Academia. We have probed the notion of friendship, scrutinized the paradigm shifts from reproduction to production, explored the tension between top-down and bottom-up heritage. We have enjoyed the potential of biological commons and have looked into the different tempi and temporalities of commoning and heritage works. The experimental dimension came along with an elaboration and expansion of a particular seminar format.
A conventional seminar-format is straight- forward thing with a content-oriented approach where scholars contribute to a joint discussion and also — in extension of that — build networks. As an experiment we ipped this order, drawing on the potential networking capacity of the seminar.
Following this, instead of merely inviting a scholar to contribute with a short paper on our theme, we invited her or him to instantly do the same — that is to invite yet another scholar to also contribute with a short paper on our theme. Western philosophy can be argued to have originated from the cities, among other factors, as a response to the challenges that the city as a space, a technical object and as a community brought with itself. However, when facing the question about the nature of the city itself, it is difficult to provide an answer, due to the city's heterogeneity, evading clear definition.
It cannot be understood solely as an architectural model or a static political organization; rather, it is a human space, inextricably linked to the human agents on the eternal movement s of various kinds, where they come into interaction with human and non-human Others. Thus, both: the exploration of the human identity and the urban identity of a place is crucial to the consideration of the identity problem in the context of cities. The city can be said to be the space for exploring the self vs the Other dynamics, and for fostering empathy.
It is especially important nowadays, when the cities are experiencing the dynamization of the social space caused by massive and varied migrations, whether we are talking of economic or scientific mobility, or the refugees fleeing war and natural disasters or climate change consequences. The transition towards a cognitive and post-industrial economy has led to the emergence of new strategies of capture of the immanent productive capacities of the social forces. Heritage entities are subject to, and also participate in, processes by which common creativity and knowledge are being harnessed by novel forms of rent and control.
