fig. a: Night & the City: the Reception
Twenty years ago to the day, in the late winter of 2001 (pre-9/11!), a conference that my friend and colleague Geoff Stahl and I had organized under the aegis of the Department of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University got underway: “Night and the City.” The response to our Call for Papers was remarkable, and the result was a vibrant and captivating academic conference that spanned four days and attracted participants from around the world. It featured dozens of panels, multiple keynote addresses (Mike Davis! Wolfgang Schivelbusch!), a wonderful screening at the Cinémathèque québécoise (Burrows & Palardy’s Montreal By Night, Godbout’s Fabienne sans son Jules, McLaren’s New York Lightboard Record, and others), an opening reception at Noize Records (showcasing images from the Will Straw Collection), and a closing event at Casa del Popolo (which had just opened a few months earlier, in September of 2000) that paired Fritz Lang’s M with the musical talents of Tim Hecker and Mitchell Akiyama.
Something about this event really struck a chord, everything just clicked for four days straight, and, for me at least, “Night & the City” still stands as a model for what an interdisciplinary academic conference is capable of being: rigorous, intellectually stimulating, lively, convivial, and entertaining.
Not surprisingly, given the subject matter and the setting, the discussions, activities, and shenanigans lasted deep into the night, each and every night. That might be one of the reasons that some of the friendships forged during those heady days of winter proved to be so lasting.
If you want to see how the conference was described at the time, in the pages of the McGill Reporter, check out this link.
Lastly, it goes without saying that it’s odd to be reflecting on this piece of history at this juncture, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. It’s even odder to be doing so in a city that continues to be on curfew (from 8:00 p.m. - 5:00 a.m.) because of this crisis.
aj
p.s. Thanks to Geoff for sharing this flyer (and thanks, too, for reminding me of this anniversary!). I have a number of items hidden away somewhere in my very own “Night & the City” archive, but this wasn’t one of them. A copy of the official poster for the conference adorns the wall of my office at work. It was particularly arresting, and most of the credit for its success goes to my friend Zoe Miller, who very graciously lent her graphic design talents and expertise to the project. Unfortunately, my office is off-limits at the moment, but this morning I found the original mock-up for the poster among a bunch of old files. This was quite by accident. Honestly. I had no recollection of this collage and I probably hadn’t seen it since 2001.
fig. b: Night & the City: the mock-up
fig. c: Night & the City: the mock-up (detail)
Thanks also to all our friends and colleagues who helped make this event possible: Marc Furstenau, Peter Urquhart, and Will Straw in particular.