Presentation

AISU has now been active on the Italian academic scene for almost twenty years. Since its establishment, the Italian Association of Urban History has stimulated the life of the scientific and academic community with constancy and spirit of initiative. It has promoted intense exchanges between different disciplines, sectors and points of view, among scholars and experts actively engaged with the themes of the city and its social, economic and cultural territories. Our biennial congresses, focused on some great themes, have reflected an ambition to draw together the multiple threads of the history of the city in Italy as part of a wider community affiliated with the European Association for Urban History. Our activities have, over time, become consolidated and articulated in other initiatives, and have been characterized by their ability to concentrate a growing number of participants, including each year more foreign cohorts and an important presence of young researchers, both male and female. The wealth and strength of proposals together with the qualifications of their proponents, up to and including the most recent conferences at the University of Genoa (2018) and at the Alma Mater University of Bologna (2019), are proof that urban history is a thriving, interdisciplinary field unfolding around a highly articulated, international field of study which cuts across historical disciplines very significantly. It is also, however, a necessarily open field, in constant dialogue with many other areas and sectors due to the sheer number of those features inherent to cities, from memory to the dynamics of a perpetual transformation that must be tested rigorously for the sustainability of its developments, its risks, and great changes. Thus, our growth, free from the usual academic frameworks and constraints, has been modelled on interests and sensitivities, readier to embrace than to exclude, and keen to involve experts from institutions and non-academic sectors. This path carved out in our work and interests makes us aware of a wealth of important ideas and studies which have defined a course along which to continue to travel together. We wish to enhance this with new prospects for our endeavours. A highly-ramified international association such as AISU can, of course, cultivate new ambitions. It can not only showcase research, but also contribute to a responsible development thereof by promoting culturally, socially and economically strategic work areas, stimulating critical reflections on the legacy of historical phenomena, engendering intercultural dialogue. It is upon this that we wish to continue to compare and share knowledge and ideas by offering a new collective platform for study, reflection and dissemination. The interdisciplinary approach, while often invoked, remains a complex and little-acknowledged exercise; urban history studies meet publishing opportunities in a more difficult way, and then in forms which are often not very permeable outside specific fields. We are taking to the field, therefore, to offer a publishing space with which to continue to foster our work. The association is establishing a publishing imprint by the name of AISU International, in acknowledgment of the internationality of its membership and of the circulation which we will pursue. AISU International will handle the dissemination of research in the field of urban history with an approach which cuts across disciplines combined with a comparative perspective really allowing us to multiply opportunities to compare and contrast our findings and to give a voice to new areas for reflection. It will cultivate the ambition to play a role in discussing the cultural heritage of cities and territories, and in current policies towards more informed choices. Our society needs history more than ever; the capacity to reflect, not only on the part of ‘experts’, but on that of society and those who represent our institutions, will also depend on how we will be able to establish relationships and on what history we will make. We are launching our publishing activities with a series entitled Storia Urbana/ Urban History, which will collect together significant findings, starting with our various AISU initiatives, validated by the established standards and procedures demanded of academic publications.