Peripheral vision and the city: Staring at the suburbs and glancing at the centre

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Sujet

Description

The Cities Seminar meets monthly during the academic year, and features a combination of guest speakers and focused group readings and discussions on a rich variety of urban topics.

The seminar has two main aims: to identify and think through the implications of new (or newly recognized) urban forms in the era of globalization, and to address new concepts and paradigms in urban theory.

- How are cities - and city life - changing in response to developments such as globalization, transnational migration, new media culture, and environmental engineering?

- How does cultural production - ranging from literature and the visual arts to architecture and design - inform or contribute to those changes? What value do critical concepts such as the cosmopolitan, the global, the exurban, and the postmetropolitan have in current debates about cities?

- What new concepts and categories do we need to address emergent urban scenes and new formations of urban identity?

Engaging with such questions, the Cities Seminar aims to stimulate open discussion, exchange, and debate on key urban topics within the humanities and beyond.