P+ARG Biennial Graduate Student Conference: "Networks of Power and Knowledge"

P+ARG Biennial Graduate Student Conference: "Networks of Power and Knowledge"

4th Biennial Graduate Student Conference | Planning and Architecture Research Group (P+ARG)

P+ARG’s 4th biennial graduate student conference, “Networks of Power and Knowledge” will take place Friday-Saturday, March 9-10. The conference will bring together graduate students from Taubman, U-M and institutions across the world, and will host series of discussions facilitated by Taubman doctoral students and faculty.

The conference’s main theme, “Networks of Power and Knowledge,” invites architects, urbanists, planners and researchers from related fields to explore the following questions:

• How do we understand the networks of power and knowledge and the implicit human condition that sustains and transforms architecture and planning practices?
• How do we reconsider the Foucauldian premise of “knowledge as power” in our contemporaneity characterized by the global phenomenon of “post-truth politics”?

The two-day graduate conference will commence with the keynote lecture by Kazys Varnelis, Network Histories: Milgram and Baran in Perspective, on Friday, March 9, 6 PM, at the Art+Architecture Building A. Alfred Taubman Common

The conference will continue on Saturday, March 10, 8:30 AM - 5 PM, at the Vandenberg Room at the Michigan League, with three panels involving presentations of graduate students from institutions across the world and disciplines including art and architecture history, city and regional planning, urban history and theory and public policy.

Panel 1: Imagining Networks: Institutions and Infrastructures  
Panel 2: Understanding Knowledge: Labor and Capital
Panel 3: Translating Power: Documents and Data

The panels will be accompanied by discussions moderated by Taubman doctoral students and faculty, and welcome the contributions of UM community. Please see below for the detailed schedule of the conference.

P+ARG will also hold a Doctoral Colloquium with the conference keynote Kazys Varnelis on Friday, March 9, 2-4 PM, at the Doctoral Lab. This will be an opportunity for all doctoral students to introduce themselves and their work, and discuss their questions at-large pertaining to research and practice with a scholar who is engaged in transdisciplinary work transcending conventional boundaries of academic labor.

Conference Keynote Friday, March 9: PhD, Director of the Urban Architecture Lab in the Art & Architecture Building's A. Alfred Taubman Wing Commons

08:30 - 09:10 Breakfast and Registration

09:10 - 09:15 Opening Remarks: E. Seda Kayim

09:15 - 11:00 Panel 1: Imagining Networks: Institutions and Infrastructures

Moderator: Bader AlBader

Lukas Pauer PhD AD Candidate, Architecture, Architectural Association
Semiotic Sanctity Markers: Ancient Megalithic Pillars and Sanctuaries

Dennis Pohl PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Program “Knowledge in the Arts,” University of the Arts, Berlin
Europe as an Infrastructure: On the Compatibility of Keys, Statistics and Governmental Techniques

Vishal Khandelwal PhD Candidate, Art History, University of Michigan
The Ahmedabad School of Architecture and Postwar Modernism in India, 1960s

Aaron Cayer PhD Candidate, Architecture, University of California, Los Angeles
From Aerospace to Hollywood: Corporate Architecture Practice and the Value of Experiential Knowledge

Respondent: Joy Knoblauch Asst. Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

11:00 - 11:30 Breakout Session

Facilitator: Michael Abrahamson PhD Candidate, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

11:30 - 12:30 Lunch

12:30 - 14:00 

Panel 2: Understanding Knowledge: Labor and Capital

Moderator: Taru

Amit Ittyerah PhD Student, Architecture, University of Michigan
Morphologies of the Post-Periphery: An Assemblage Urbanism

Angelica DeJesus M.Sc., Public Policy, University of Michigan
Reforestation and Resistance in Times of (Colonial) Crises: The Case of Puerto Rico

Jongeun You M.Sc., Public Policy, University of Michigan
Policy Implications of the Texas Wind Power Case.

Respondent: Martin Murray Prof. of Urban Planning and Sociology, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and LSA Department of Afroamerican and African Studies

14:00 - 14:30 Breakout Session

Facilitator: Secil Binboga PhD Candidate, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

14:30 - 15:00 Coffee Break

15:00 - 16:30 Panel 3: Translating Power: Documents and Data

Moderator: Dicle Taskin

Dan Costa Baciu PhD Candidate, Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
The Pareto Distribution: Speculations and Lack of Theory

Michael Faciejew  PhD Candidate, Architecture, Princeton University
Designing Worldwide Society, ca. 1900

Angela Gigliotti PhD Fellow, Architecture, Aarhus School of Architecture
Denmark and Its Influencers: The Urgency of Architectural Efficiency

Respondent: Patricia Garcia Asst. Prof. of Information, School of Information

16:30 - 17:00 Closing Remarks: Kazys Varnelis