A Metropolis in Transformation
The European Ruhr region between industrialisation and the post-carbon age
Mont-Cenis academy / Photo: Stadt Herne/Thomas Schmidt
Seen from the historical perspective, can the Ruhr region be regarded as a metropolis endowed with the kind of key structural features and developmental momentum that marks out a specific type of European city? And given its historical background, how will the Ruhr make the transition from a carbon to a post-carbon industrial society in the wake of the inevitability of climate change?
These will be the core issues at the heart of an international academic congress organised by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen in early 2010. The KWI will be focusing its attention on the most important development strategies and future issues facing the region, seeking to ascertain how European the Ruhr Metropolis actually is.
On the first day the congress will examine the key characteristics of European cities and regions in a historical context, uniting these with developments in the Ruhr in the age of coal and steel. The second day of the event will address the challenges of the future. What is the best way of facilitating the transition from a past defined by carbon to a future that, owing to the potentially dramatic repercussions of climate change, has to be "low-carbon"? Scientists from the region, other parts of Germany and Europe have been invited to the congress in Essen.
Janurary 11 - 12, 2010
Essen, Zollverein, Hall 2.
Registration required. Please e-mail
maria.klauwer@kwi-nrw.de
You can find further information at:
www.kulturwissenschaften.de
www.kulturwissenschaften.de/home/kwiintervention