'Visualising the City' is an interdisciplinary symposium which will seek to draw upon interests in popular film, photography, architecture, history, cultural geography, art history, and sociology. The conference aims to explore how film and photographic depictions filter and shape the way we understand and interact with the built environment. Possible topics which intersect the overarching theme of the symposium include (but are not limited to):

• the genre of ‘the city film’
• the transnational vs the provincial city
• dreaming the city
• city as celebratory site
• representations of anti-urbanism
• city as labyrinth
• urban insiders and outsiders
• counter-hegemonic stories of the city
• Bollywood and the city film
• the Noir city
• the virtual city
• the challenge of the urban future

Submissions are invited from scholars of film, media, gender and cultural studies, history, art history, literature, architecture, sociology and cultural geography. Proposals from postgraduates are also welcome. A collection of conference papers will be selected for an edited publication by the organizers.

Brief abstracts and title (150 words) for 20-minute papers, with a short biographical statement should be sent by 31 Jan. to Dr. Alan Marcus (address shown below). Alternatively, email your abstract to the following e-mail address (please mark your email subject line ‘Visualising the City Symposium’). Proposals may also be considered for panels (of four papers): 150-word rationale should include panel title, brief description of panel theme, name of the panel chair, and 150-word abstracts of each paper and contact details for each presenter (name, institutional affiliation postal address and email address). Visit our web site at: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/visualisingthecity/