Welcome to Mobilities and Complexities – research perspectives in the light of John Urry

Description: The new ‘mobilities turn’ has become a powerful perspective in European social theory and is beginning to make an impact in the Americas as well. It challenges mainstream theoretical and empirical approaches that were grounded in a sedentary and bounded view of states. It propels innovative thinking about social and media ecologies, complex systems, and social change in modern worlds and lives. It bridges many disciplines and methodologies, leading to new approaches to existing problems while also resonating with questions of history and paths toward the future. Mobilities research marks the beginning of a new transdisciplinarity and the rise of a new phase in international cooperation and collaboration, as societies around the world face the ecological limits of contemporary mobility and energy systems. In particular, John Urry’s oeuvre has been very influential in the emergence of this new field and has had lasting impacts on many scholars, their thinking and researching on mobilities and modernities. In this PhD course three of John Urry’s close collaborators brings together the ideas and perspectives that Urry’s work inspired to within the ‘mobilities turn’. The course takes point of departure in the book ‘Mobilities and Complexities’ (Routledge, 2018) edited by the lecturers. The book gathers the most important contributions and authors in relation to John Urry’s work. The contributors represent a number of national contexts, including England, Germany, Denmark, Canada and the USA. The book collects personal essays and gives insight into a vivid network of scientists who have connections of various degrees to the work of John Urry. In the course the lecturers will use their own research practice within the ‘mobilities turn’ and their inspiration from John Urry as an outset for setting up a research workshop discussion with PhD students across areas of relevance (e.g. geography, planning, sociology, urban studies, transport studies, anthropology, urban design, architecture). The course participants will be reflecting over their own PhD projects in relation to Urry’s work in specific, but also invited to think about how one positions one’s research within research areas and how one works operationally with inspiration from foundational ideas.

Organizer: Professor, Ole B. Jensen, obje@create.aau.dk
Lecturer(s): Professor Mimi Sheller, Drexel University (US), Professor Sven Kesselring, HfWU (Germany), Professor Ole B. Jensen, AAU

ECTS: 3

Time: May 28-29 2019
Place: Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Rendsburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg

Number of seats: 15
Deadline: May 7th 2019

Important information concerning PhD courses: We have over some time experienced problems with no-show for both project and general courses. It has now reached a point where we are forced to take action. Therefore, the Doctoral School has decided to introduce a no-show fee of DKK 5,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately three months before start. This can hopefully also provide new students a chance to register for courses during the year. We look forward to your registrations.