Cotsen Affiliates Present at Congress in Turin, Italy

Willeke Wendrich, director of the Cotsen Institute, and UCLA graduate students Brandon Keith, Iman Nagy, and Matei Tichindelean presented their research at the tenth congress of the Italian Association of Urban History, held September 6–10, 2022 in Turin, Italy. The association aims to promote the study of urban history. The theme of the tenth congress was “Adaptive Cities Through the Postpandemic Lens.”

Nagy, who presented by recorded video, and Tichindelean are both graduate students in the Cotsen Institute, and Keith is a graduate student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Their presentation was on “Construction, Destruction, and Reconfiguration of the Ritual Landscape of Philae (Egypt),” and was part of the session on “Expressing the Longue Durée, 3D Modeling Change Over Time,” co-organized by Wendrich and Elaine Sullivan, currently at UC Santa Cruz and a former post-doctoral researcher at UCLA. Keith, Tichindelean and Wendrich are currently involved in archaeological fieldwork just east of Turin.

Wendrich presented in the plenary session on “Controversial Adaptivity” and at the final session to report as a coordinator of Session 6 on “Interactions Between Humanity and the Environment in the Long Durée.”

The Italian Association of Urban History is one of the most active Italian cultural associations and concerned with the history of cities. It enjoys strong institutional support from universities, research centers, and cultural institutions, as well as broader academic engagement. Because the history of cities is multifaceted and plural, the association is multidisciplinary, inclusive and international. It is in this context that the association seeks to promote scientific research, interdisciplinary and cross-sector dialogue, to stimulate debate in civil society, and, in particular, to support the many young researchers who attend the various activities that it organizes every year.

Captions:

Figures 1 and 2. Graduate students Matei Tichindelean, Brandon Keith and Iman Nagy (through a recorded video) present their research in the Faculty of Engineering of the Politecnico di Torino.

Figure 3. The opening reception of the conference was held in the historical Valentino Castle (1633–1660), the central building of the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Torino.

Figure 4. The conference dinner was hosted in the former royal hunting lodge in Venaria Reale (1658–1675), just outside Turin.