<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nHeba Alnajada<\/strong>
\nThe Street as a Ruin of Informalization in Palestinian Refugee Camps<\/strong><\/p>\nThis talk looks at the ruins of informalization in Palestinian refugee camps. It begins by historicizing the shift towards \u2018informality,\u2019 locating it in the 1980s, at the intersection of sustained humanitarian non-recognition, the continuum to undo Palestinian refugee camps, and the adoption of World Bank-funded developmentalist imaginaries. The ruins of this process of informalization are many: rubble, tiles, the disappearance of state departments and archives, and language itself as a ruin, to name but a few. The talk focuses on one of these: a street cut through the dwellings of a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. It details how the street is the product not only of \u201csquatter settlement\u201d upgrading projects, but also of a language of informality, along with the habits of mind of architects and planners. The argument here is that a street in a non-recognized camp is not merely a line on a map, a passage for traffic, or a pedestrian space; it embodies a principle of architecture and urban planning predicated on \u2018sanctioned ignorance\u2019 and the erasure and disappearance of Palestinian history. The street is a ruin of informalization in space, in the rubble, the tiles that remain visible, and in time and subjectivity. This talk ends by considering how the time of the \u2018squatter settlement\u2019 is already over and how camp dwellers contemplate these ruins and work against them.
\n<\/span>
\nLiam Bierschenk<\/b>
\n<\/b>Pedestrian Space conceived as a K (knowledge) Space: from negative to positive hallucination and symbol formation<\/strong><\/p>\nIn this paper I will discuss Sandback\u2019s concept of \u2018Pedestrian Space\u2019 being a diffuse space combining the triple ontology of space-viewer-artwork, to ask how the capacity to conceive of space and objects arises in the first instance, from a psychoanalytic perspective. I will draw on the work of psychoanalysts Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion to describe a developmental process between self and other, which passes through phases of hallucinatory experience to arrive at the capacity to use symbols proper. I shall touch on the significance of these processes for art and science, specifically mathematics, and make the case that psychoanalysis, or rather the psychoanalytic state of mind, is a method for exploring these developmental experiences and the spaces they reveal.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Liisa Bourgeot <\/b>
\n<\/span>Stalin-era logicians: a quest for intellectual freedom in a totalitarian state<\/strong><\/p>\nThe emergence of Soviet dissent caught everyone off guard. Soviet leaders and Western observers alike had assumed that Stalin\u2019s iron regime had crushed free thought and independent action in the USSR. Thus, the first public manifestation of inakomyshlenie (\u2018thinking-otherwise\u2019) that took place on Moscow\u2019s Pushkin Square in 1965 was utterly unforeseen.<\/span><\/p>\nRecently, the evolution of the Soviet human rights movement in the 1960s and 70s has been a topic for rich discussions. Their narratives often build around the eccentric mathematician, poet, and gulag-inmate Alexander Esenin-Volpin, whose founding idea was simple: the Soviet state should be held accountable for its own laws. Stalin\u2019s Constitution purported to guarantee rights \u2013 freedom of assembly, speech, and the press \u2013 to all Soviet citizens. These rights never existed in reality; yet Esenin-Volpin inspired the early dissidents to pretend they were real.<\/span><\/p>\nIn my talk, I suggest that the roots of the dissident movement can be traced further back in Soviet intellectual history, specifically to the \u201crebirth\u201d of logic after WWII. This claim appears at first paradoxical. From 1947 onwards, all Soviet philosophy had to conform to the official ideology; those who failed to comply risked harsh repressions. Yet, even under the strictest control, logic developed in relative freedom. Thinkers such as Valentin Asmus and Sofiya Yanovskaya \u2013 both future mentors of Esenin-Volpin \u2013 kept their university posts, published new ideas, and thus prepared the ground for future generations.<\/span><\/p>\nIntellectual freedom in the USSR was not only a phenomenon of a post-totalitarian era; its seeds were sown during Stalin\u2019s harshest years. My talk examines how expressions of freedom could arise from the midst of extreme ideological control \u2013 first in the field of Soviet logic, then through the rationale of Soviet law.
\n<\/span><\/p>\nMargaret Crawford<\/strong>
\nPedestrians, Spatial Practices, and the Right to the City<\/strong><\/p>\nThe literature of the modern city casts pedestrians as privileged actors, exemplifying modernity as they move through sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces. From Frederick Law Olmsted\u2019s advocacy of civilized strolling, to the Parisian flaneur, \u201cbotanizing the pavement,\u201d to Jane Jacob\u2019s description of the \u201cstreet ballet\u201d to Jan Gehl\u2019s designs for \u201cvibrant\u201d city centers, the pedestrian experience has been depicted as the essence of urban life. This paper explores less celebrated pedestrians and others who share pedestrian spaces, but whose presence is often challenged. Since the 19th<\/sup> century, definitions of these unwanted pedestrians have continually changed, ranging from immigrant garment workers to black and brown men. Even more challenging are stationary spatial practices in pedestrian areas usually defined by directional mobility. These actions can include repetitive movements such as picketing, temporary but fixed occupation by street vendors or day laborers, or assembled groups of protestors. These practices, both mobile and stationary, highlight other dimensions of urban life. Sites of contention over access to public space, they reveal competing claims to identity and inclusion. I argue that these pedestrian practices are far from pedestrian, but contain significant meanings that embody ongoing struggles over the meaning of democracy.<\/p>\nMarta Gutman<\/b>
\n<\/b>Pedestrian Space, School Children, and Racial Justice in Harlem<\/strong><\/p>\nFor this architectural historian, the tag pedestrian space carries dual connotations\u2014the first being architectural, meaning that when a building or a space is labeled pedestrian, it is viewed as unremarkable, a second rate work; the second being geographical, meaning that when an urban space is designated \u201cpedestrian\u201d it is reserved for people who walk, excluding vehicles and the danger and risk that are associated with them. The tag in the first instance casts pedestrian as a problem, a failure, and in the second as a success, as something to strive for, a benefit to city dwellers of all ages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI am not convinced that either assumption helps in understanding pedestrian space in relationship to public architecture for children, historically or in the present day. For instance, in New York City, my hometown, streets were closed to traffic during the pandemic and portable playground equipment was introduced, scattered willy nilly on asphalt and concrete. Kids are adept at turning adult-designed play equipment to their own uses, but this intervention shows how easily a space turned to pedestrian use can easily become an example of pedestrian architecture.<\/span><\/p>\nI start from this vantage point, that children are pedestrians, \u201cwalkers in the city\u201d who inscribe pedestrian spaces in their neighborhoods. Alfred Kazin coined the phrase to describe his childhood in Brownsville<\/span>, Brooklyn, and he invoked the city block as the salient spatial structure in the life of a young immigrant child\u2014a place to inhabit, and to imagine leaving, to claim a life in the city beyond the block. In this paper, I turn to another salient material feature in the public life of city children\u2014the public school, which I examine in relationship to pedestrian space and racial justice in Harlem. If school officials acknowledged the child as a walker in locating public schools, children learned who they were when they walked to school. I\u2019m especially interested in discussing white and Black children who walked to different schools in Harlem in the middle of the nineteenth century. If their walk to racially segregated school buildings imparted lessons about racial hierarchy, racial inequality, and privilege to students, walking by common schools also required whites to recognize Black children\u2019s childhood, their standing as students, and their rights to public education. I show that these distinctions were a harbinger of anti-racist struggles to come, struggles which also engaged children, schools, and pedestrian space.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Klaske Havik<\/b>
\n<\/span>Urban Tapestry. Weaving timelines of pedestrian experience in The Hague<\/strong>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>In this talk, I will present an urban tapestry, woven from spatial and temporal lines through the city of The Hague, The Netherlands. I will describe pedestrian space in the Dutch city The Hague through different periods, based on two female characters. Part of my narrative describes the city in the 1930s, a city undergoing change as new modern lifestyles emerged. In the early 20th century, The Hague was a vibrant city with a dynamic cultural life, boasting many cinemas and theatres, while the new phenomenon of the department stores emerged. Streets were being widened or newly built as part of urban development projects to accommodate motorised traffic. It is in this Hague that I set the story of Jeanne, who travelled to the city daily to work at a textile atelier in the Passage. Running parallel to her daily route is that of Maria, a young writer living in the city center around the year 2000. Through her eyes, we see how another architect, Rem Koolhaas (OMA) follows in Berlage’s footsteps, aiming to turn The Hague into a contemporary metropolitan city \u2014 a goal that only partially succeeds due to the city’s somewhat unruly and conventional character. Both storylines address the experiential aspects of the city streets through the eyes of the pedestrian.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Sandra Laugier<\/strong>
\nNew Coordinates of Public Space<\/strong><\/p>\nI want to examine the profound transformation of public space in contemporary societies, particularly in light of recent developments such as the COVID-19 pandemic, social movements, and the increasing entanglement of private and public spheres.<\/p>\n
Drawing on thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Cavell, Emerson, and Dewey,I shall\u00a0redefine\u00a0public space as a space of expression rather than agreement, where democracy emerges through the ability of individuals to claim a voice rather than conform to pre-established norms. It highlights how marginalized voices, social movements, and everyday practices reshape public space by making private experiences publicly visible.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the essay proposes a shift from a deliberative model of democracy toward a performative, realistic\u00a0 and experiential one, where public space is continuously created through acts of speech, dissent, and collective life.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDarien Pollock<\/strong>
\nIntellectual Refuge: Street Knowledge, Higher Education, and Democratic Communities<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI argue that, within a democratic context, universities have the opportunity to supply two distinct forms of knowledge to students and the broader community that they serve; namely \u201cformal knowledge\u201d (i.e., book knowledge) and \u201cinformal knowledge\u201d (i.e., street knowledge).<\/p>\n
In order for students, faculty, administrators to have access to street knowledge, the university campus must be perceived (and operate) as an \u201copen society\u201d for sharing and debating ideas and perspectives that are illegible to mainstream media but valuable to certain segments of the public sphere, especially those overlooked by individuals and institutions that hold political and economic power.<\/p>\n
Ana Mar\u00eda Reyes
\n<\/strong><\/span>Activating Vulnerability: On Artivism in Colombia\u2019s Precarious Peace Process<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nReyes analyzes contemporary artivism in Colombia through the activation of public and pedestrian space during the country\u2019s fragile peace process. Focusing on ephemeral, participatory interventions staged in streets, marches, and emblematic civic plazas, most notably Bogot\u00e1\u2019s Plaza de Bol\u00edvar, she argues that artivists deliberately mobilize vulnerable materials and embodied presence to transform spaces of circulation into sites of mourning, protest, and political assembly. Through case studies of works and actions by Doris Salcedo, the Way\u00fau Mantas Negras movement, and Felipe Arturo, Reyes demonstrates how these interventions interrupt everyday urban movement and reconfigure public space as a forum for ethical encounter and collective responsibility. By occupying plazas and streets that function simultaneously as lived civic environments and symbolic centers of national power, these practices render human and ecological fragility visible to national and international audiences while demanding accountability, infrastructural justice, and a sustainable peace. Ultimately, Reyes reconceptualizes public space not as a neutral backdrop for dissent but as a material and political medium through which solidarity, remembrance, and democratic participation are collectively enacted.<\/p>\n
Lecturer in Criticism:<\/h3>\n
Susan Stewart<\/b>
\n<\/b>Far-fetched: On the Poetry of Walking<\/strong><\/p>\nA talk on the synergy between walking and the imagination, with a focus on poems by William Cowper, William Wordsworth, and others.<\/span><\/p>\nEdward Vazquez
\nA More Complex Situation: Fred Sandback\u2019s Spaces<\/span><\/b>
\n<\/b>This talk will provide an overview of Fred Sandback\u2019s art, offering formal and interpretive context for Sandback\u2019s notion of \u201cPedestrian Space\u201d and its place within broader debates on artistic creation and perception in relation to\u2014and perhaps even as\u2014<\/i>everyday, quotidian experience. Through an analysis of his spare, site-aware installations, key writings and historical precedents, this talk will consider the “utopian glimmerings of art and life happily cohabiting\u201d that drove Sandback\u2019s coining, marking the on-the-ground presences of its experiential core as well as naming its institutional and critical limits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedestrian Space Featured Events & Installations Program Participants Heba Alnajada The Street as a Ruin of Informalization in Palestinian Refugee Camps This talk looks at the ruins of informalization in Palestinian refugee camps. It begins by historicizing the shift towards \u2018informality,\u2019 locating it in the 1980s, at the intersection of sustained humanitarian non-recognition, the continuum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16661,"featured_media":0,"parent":24018,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24454"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24802,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24454\/revisions\/24802"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"\/humanities\/files\/2025\/12\/Pedestrian-Space-screensgraphics-Medium-Banner-US-Landscape-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n