Events

7th Asian Studies Annual Conference on City Planning and Preservation

Preamble
Nowa Huta in Poland is an example of an ideal city, but it remained unfinished to fulfill the political expression of the Soviet days. It was conceived in 1950 as Socrealist city but as the political ideology changed, Nowa Huta faced the turbulence of transformed political landscape. The plans were discarded and then implemented again and stretched further but the glory days of industry and gigantic steel structures, which initiated its birth, do not inspire the city anymore. Nowa Huta is a city loaded with the burden of history, planning, wrecking, creating, thinking, resisting, and reforming. It still is a beautiful city.

In South Asia, the first urbanization with Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the second urbanization around Gautama Buddha’s life, and the subsequent rise and fall of the cities till the recent times have multiple elements intersecting their making. Cities have been wrecked and planned all over the world.

City, hence, is our focus for this year’s conference. We understand that issues for urban studies range from nature, myth, art, gender, refugee to trauma, and many more, which can be addressed within, for instance, the disciplines of urban planning, nature and art studies, gender discourses, Marxism, post/de colonialism, architecture, and psychology.

After an initial discourse on circles (squares) and streets of Kathmandu Valley cities on December 7, 2025, Webinar, Enduring Cities: Streets and Circles of Kathmandu Valley, we wish to invite abstracts and papers for City Planning and Preservation in the following areas.

Research Areas

• Petals on a wet, black bough¹ (Nature and City)
• My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch² (Gender and City)
• Scattered over unsurveyed territories³ (City and Planning)
• I lift my lamp beside the golden door!⁴ (City of Refuge)
• Artifice of Eternity⁵ (City of Myth and Art)
• One Need Not be a Chamber – to be Haunted⁶ (Psychology of City)

The conference is organized by Institute of Advanced Communication, Education, and Research (IACER) in collaboration with South Asian Foundation for Academic Research (SAFAR) and  Center for Advanced Studies in South Asia (CASSA).

Key Dates to Remember

• Submit your Paper Abstract (250 words) to safarsouthasia@gmail.com
• Deadline for Abstract submission: Feb 7, 2026
• Announcement for Abstract Acceptance: Feb 15-20, 2026

Documentation style: APA 7th Edition
To Know More: Click APA Formatting Guidelines

Number of words for published paper: 6000 words
The editorial board will select the final papers for publication after peer reviews. If the paper is accepted for publication, we will inform you about other details.

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1. From Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”
2. From Amy Powell’s “Aliens”
3. From Margaret Atwood’s “City Planners”
4. From Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus”
5. From W. B. Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”
6. From Emily Dickinson’s “One Need Not be a Chamber – to be Haunted”