Rethinking the Histories and Legacies of Industrial Cities

The history of (European) industrial cities is often told as a tragic tale of rise and decline: from rapid industrialisation in the late 19th century and economic prosperity during the Trente Glorieuses to the structural changes of the late 1970s and the subsequent deindustrialisation of the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1980s and ‘90s, most mines and iron and steel works closed down, unemployment rates went up, new social problems emerged, workers’ identities seemed to erode, and once prosperous urban centres were faced with a shrinking population and empty stores on their main shopping streets. Finally, since the 2000s, the former steel towns have tried to reinvent themselves as creative and cultural centres. But if we take a closer look, we can see that the transitions were more complex than the simple rise-and-decline narrative suggests. The workshop aims to zoom in on the history of industrial towns in Western and Eastern Europe to improve our understanding of how the people who lived in these industrial territories made sense of the developments outlined above. We are interested in the manifold narratives and counter-narratives of these industrial towns and cities.

10 -11 December 2020

Online - Webex

 If you would like to participate please send an email to vanessa.napolitano@ext.uni.lu.