Urban questions have become central to discourse in fields as diverse as architecture, urban planning, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, media studies, comparative literature, and the history of science and technology. As the discussion of urbanism has expanded, the notion of "urban studies" has become ever-more diffuse and contested.Within this shifting territory, new critical research and rigorous theory is needed to ensure vitality in such a broad, interdisciplinary field. As emerging academics and professionals situated between the social sciences, humanities and urban practice, Writing Cities aims to initiate a trans-Atlantic conversation on future scholarship and engagement in cities. We seek papers that address the questions sketched out above. The workshop should raise themes such as interdisciplinarity, methods, theory building as well as introduce in-depth case studies and examples to generate a lively and enriching discussion. Visual research projects such as documentary video and film, cartography, and spatial design experiments are encouraged, but must be accompanied by written theoretical work. Graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard who have participated in Richard Sennett's seminar, as well as graduate students from the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics are invited to submit a 500 word abstract, including a brief biography. Please state when you took Richard Sennett's seminar. Students selected to participate from the LSE will be eligible for a limited travel honorarium. The final papers should be a maximum of 20-25 pages (6,000 - 7,000 words). Submissions are now CLOSED Participants' 250 Word Abstracts Due for Website: March 1 Participants' Final Papers Due: March 28, email a pdf of your final paper to writingcities@mit.edu Panel preparation (more information later): April Workshop Dates: Wednesday and Thursday 23-24 April 2008 Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts Please email writingcities@mit.edu with any questions!