The smart city discourse has been a dominant feature of city policies in the last twenty years. Academically the debates have centered around private sector interference in local governance\, and the limitatio ns of what is essentially a continuation of modernist planning. This refle ction focuses on theoretical and expirical explorations of the ‘real sma rt city’ in Africa\, and the interface between urban livelihoods\, techn ology appropriation and the making of places. \;
\nPlease join u s in person at the Natural History Museum Basel or via Zoom.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251021T203000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news354@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251006T135755 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251016T173000 SUMMARY:Book launch: Worlding Home: An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Ca mps in Goma\, DRC DESCRIPTION:This book opens up and interrogates the socio-spatial dynamics of contingent camps inhabited by United Nations peacekeepers in and around the city of Goma\, DRC. Between 2017 and 2019\, the city of Goma and two adjacent towns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo accommodated UN pea cekeepers from Asia\, Africa\, and Latin America in over 20 different camp s. This study brings the productive tension between these camps and the ci ty to life through an ethnographic study of peacekeepers as urban\, social actors who make and re-make their camps and the city itself\, and who fra me and re-frame what it means to be at home and what it means to be in the world. In setting off from a novel starting point for global urban studie s research\, it proposes an analytic of camping to not only think cities t hrough elsewhere\, but as elsewhere. \\r\\nAll the relevant information is on the following webpage for online participation: \\r\\nhttps://www. sciencespo.fr/research/cities/2025/10/03/maren-larsen-worlding-home-an-urb an-ethnography-of-peacekeeping-camps-in-goma-drc-16-10-2025-530pm-700pm-ce st/ [https://www.sciencespo.fr/research/cities/2025/10/03/maren-larsen-wor lding-home-an-urban-ethnography-of-peacekeeping-camps-in-goma-drc-16-10-20 25-530pm-700pm-cest/] X-ALT-DESC:This book opens up and interrogates the socio-spatial dynamic s of contingent camps inhabited by United Nations peacekeepers in and arou nd the city of Goma\, DRC. Between 2017 and 2019\, the city of Goma and tw o adjacent towns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo accommodated UN p eacekeepers from Asia\, Africa\, and Latin America in over 20 different ca mps. This study brings the productive tension between these camps and the city to life through an ethnographic study of peacekeepers as urban\, soci al actors who make and re-make their camps and the city itself\, and who f rame and re-frame what it means to be at home and what it means to be in t he world. In setting off from a novel starting point for global urban stud ies research\, it proposes an analytic of camping to not only think cities through elsewhere\, but \;as \;elsewhere. \;
\nAll the relevant information is on the following webpage for online parti cipation: \;
\n \n\n\n END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news346@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250619T160330 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250825T100000 SUMMARY:NEW Block course coming up in the fall semester - "Observing and Re storing Border Landscape Continuities" DESCRIPTION:School's out for summer! We are pleased to announce that Fall 2 025 Critical Urbanisms courses will also kick off again at the end of the summer with "Observing and Restoring Border Landscape Continuities\," a bl ock course happening from August 25-29. This exceptional timing offers stu dents the unique opportunity to observe diverse flora and fauna in the Bas el\, tri-national region\, providing direct insights into habitat-specific vegetation and ecological dynamics. Mark your calendars and\, if you're t raveling this summer\, make sure you're back in time to catch this excitin g course! X-ALT-DESC:School's out for summer! We are pleased to announce that Fall 20 25 Critical Urbanisms courses will also kick off again at the end of the s ummer with "Observing and Restoring Border Landscape Continuities\," a blo ck course happening from August 25-29. This exceptional timing offers stud ents the unique opportunity to observe diverse flora and fauna in the Base l\, tri-national region\, providing direct insights into habitat-specific vegetation and ecological dynamics. Mark your calendars and\, if you're tr aveling this summer\, make sure you're back in time to catch this exciting course!\n\n DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250829T170000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news329@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250513T113053 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250612 SUMMARY:Liquid Urbanisms in Africa: Thinking Climate Adaption with and thro ugh Water DESCRIPTION:Using water as a way of seeing through\, with and about climate -related urban issues\, this international workshop offers a critical exam ination of the urban/water interface in African coastal cities. African co astal cities stand at the sharp edge of water-borne climate change. They a re forecast to attract the highest urban growth and investment\, but are a lso persistently scripted as the least well equipped to deal with climate- related disasters\, making manifest the tension between the imperatives of economic growth and sustainable urban development. The workshop brings together architecture\, urban planning and critical social theory to explo re the diverse ways African urban communities are adapting their lives and environments to climate change induced transformations in coastal areas. Drawing on empirical contexts across the African continent\, presenters wi ll rethink conventional urban adaptation strategies by centering water as a method to reimagine sustainable futures. Key themes include the transfor mation of materials\, vulnerability and infrastructure politics\, and "amp hibious" ways of reimagining urban living. These insights are crucial f or reimagining urban futures in times of environmental change\, especially for African contexts\, where pessimistic or development-centric narrative s of crisis dominate. Join leading academics and practitioners as they dev elop perspectives of critical hope on sustainable urban development in the face of global climate challenges. Keynote speaker: Huda Tayob [https:// www.hudatayob.com/]\, RCA. Participation fees: 60.- CHF Faculty and emplo yed non-members 30.- CHF Student non-members\, SGAS/SSEA/SSAS members Free : student SGAS/SSEA/SSAS members Registration: Please register your atten dance until 15 May 2025 by clicking on the registration link here [https:/ /docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfepBK3n57GGPFCe45NIhDeY-XaHOWQ2o77ZfnlH jY6fuJGBQ/viewform]. For the event's full program\, please click here. [t3://file?uid=647] For further questions and information\, please conta ct: dany.tiwa@unibas.ch [mailto:dany.tiwa@unibas.ch] Tel. +41 61 2076413 X-ALT-DESC:Using water as a way of seeing through\, with and about clima
te-related urban issues\, this international workshop offers a critical ex
amination of the urban/water interface in African coastal cities. African
coastal cities stand at the sharp edge of water-borne climate change. They
are forecast to attract the highest urban growth and investment\, but are
also persistently scripted as the least well equipped to deal with climat
e-related disasters\, making manifest the tension between the imperatives
of economic growth and sustainable urban development. \;
The wor
kshop brings together architecture\, urban planning and critical social th
eory to explore the diverse ways African urban communities are adapting th
eir lives and environments to climate change induced transformations in co
astal areas. Drawing on empirical contexts across the African continent\,
presenters will rethink conventional urban adaptation strategies by center
ing water as a method to reimagine sustainable futures. Key themes include
the transformation of materials\, vulnerability and infrastructure politi
cs\, and "amphibious" ways of reimagining urban living. \;
These insights are crucial for reimagining urban futures in times of env
ironmental change\, especially for African contexts\, where pessimistic or
development-centric narratives of crisis dominate. Join leading academics
and practitioners as they develop perspectives of critical hope on sustai
nable urban development in the face of global climate challenges.
Keynote speaker: Huda Tayob\, RCA.
Participation fees:<
br /> 60.- CHF Faculty and employed non-members
30.- CHF Student non
-members\, SGAS/SSEA/SSAS members
Free: student SGAS/SSEA/SSAS membe
rs
Registration: Please register your attend
ance until 15 May 2025 by clicking on the registration link here. \;
For th
e event's full program\, please click \;he
re.
For further questions and information\, please contac
t:
dany.tiwa@un
ibas.ch \;
Tel. +41 61 2076413
This workshop focuses on two different strategies for a relat ional pedagogical approach to urban Africa. The first strategy derives fro m pedagogical frameworks and examples created by Calvin Masilela and Piers Blaikie and entails transforming the classroom into a theatre. Students d evelop a play – though it sometimes plays out more like a court case – built around urban development contexts in Africa\, with students playing the roles of a wide variety of actors. The examples in the workshop come from Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. The goal is for students to see\, in an i nteractionist and relational approach to the material\, that there are man y angles on urban development questions\, many possible outcomes\, and man y links from urban Africa to other contexts across the whole-world. The se cond strategy entails building comparisons and connections between cities without using the global North- or Western-based canon as the starting pla ce. Example case studies pair the Zambian Copperbelt with Detroit and Pari s with Nairobi\, guiding students toward ways of seeing the connections an d disconnections attendant with globalization in the deindustrializing urb an realms for the first pairing and peripheral infrastructure development in the second. The module also uses interviews with scholars studying both contexts to give students a deeper means for relating to the cases person ally. \; \;
\nFor more information\, please click here . \;
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news336@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250218T133855 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250321T101500 SUMMARY:Career Perspectives Day 2025 DESCRIPTION:The Career Perspectives Day supports MA Critical Urbanisms stud ents as they prepare to enter the job market. The event combines interacti ve workshops\, expert-led sessions\, and networking opportunities with pro fessionals and alumni working in the fields of architecture and planning. Students will gain practical advice on crafting effective applications\, s ecuring funding\, and preparing for interviews\, along with valuable tips from former students of the MA Critical Urbanisms\, professional\, and HR experts. The day aims to equip attendees with the tools and knowledge need ed to navigate career challenges\, explore diverse opportunities\, and con nect with inspiring professionals and peers as they embark on their profes sional journeys.\\r\\nIn conjunction with the event\, the Career Service C enter will offer 30-minute individual CV check-up sessions on March 20th ( 14:00-16:30) and March 21st (8:00-12:00)\, by appointment only. Students i nterested in a CV check-up should send an email to fabrizio.furiassi@uniba s.ch [mailto:fabrizio.furiassi@unibas.ch] no later than 13th March. Appoin tments will be assigned on a first-come-first-served basis. X-ALT-DESC:The Career Perspectives Day supports MA Critical Urbanisms st udents as they prepare to enter the job market. The event combines interac tive workshops\, expert-led sessions\, and networking opportunities with p rofessionals and alumni working in the fields of architecture and planning . Students will gain practical advice on crafting effective applications\, securing funding\, and preparing for interviews\, along with valuable tip s from former students of the MA Critical Urbanisms\, professional\, and H R experts. The day aims to equip attendees with the tools and knowledge ne eded to navigate career challenges\, explore diverse opportunities\, and c onnect with inspiring professionals and peers as they embark on their prof essional journeys.
\nIn conjunction with the event\, the Career Serv ice Center will offer 30-minute individual CV check-up sessions on March 2 0th (14:00-16:30) and March 21st (8:00-12:00)\, by appointment only. Stude nts interested in a CV check-up should send an email to fabrizio.furiassi@unibas.ch no later than 1 3th March. Appointments will be assigned on a first-come-first-served basi s.
\n\n DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250321T170000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news338@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250306T144023 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250320T171500 SUMMARY:Basler Infoabend Master 2025 DESCRIPTION:Erkunden Sie jetzt unser vielfältiges Studienangebot und infor mieren Sie sich mittels den Kurzpräsentationen über die einzelnen Studie ngänge und -fächer der Phil.-Hist. Fakultät. X-ALT-DESC:Erkunden Sie jetzt unser vielfältiges Studienangebot und inf ormieren Sie sich mittels den Kurzpräsentationen über die einzelnen Stud iengänge und -fächer der Phil.-Hist. Fakultät.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250320T203600 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news331@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250217T151212 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250314T150000 SUMMARY:Native\, Worker\, Owner: Theorizing African Embodiments in the City DESCRIPTION:Our urban spaces are shaped by a multitude of histories\, peopl es\, spirits\, ecologies\, economies and aspirations\, even when particula r narratives remain hegemonic in the formal archives\, such as those that attend to the former “colonial capital” or current “world class” f utures\, for example. While acknowledging the longue duree of colonialism in our built environment\, in this session we intentionally embrace other entangled embodiments that speak from African places. Here\, we are attune d to the vernacular articulations of the city across different times\, and that reference the trajectories of urban life when the African was concei ved of primarily as the ‘native\,’ then the ‘worker\,’ and now the ‘owner.’ Through these porous categories\, we signal other epistemics towards more expansive city intimacies. Drawing on music videos\, superhe ro animations\, adolescent drawings\, grassroots environmental efforts\, s lang vernaculars\, student protests\, cultural proverbs and more\, we seek to share tools and techniques to enable more situated encounters with div erse African cities. Our primary objective is to encourage co-learning abo ut African urban spaces through articulations that are often not legitimat ed as critical tools\, yet which register important and insurgent claims a bout the histories\, presents and futures of our dynamic African cities.\\ r\\nRegister for the session: https://mau-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/UnY 5RUEJTuWhZq1DGCOURA [https://mau-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/UnY5RUEJTuWhZ q1DGCOURA]\\r\\nFor more information\, please click here [https://teaching africancities.vt.domains/uncategorized/workshops/]. X-ALT-DESC:Our urban spaces are shaped by a multitude of histories\, peo ples\, spirits\, ecologies\, economies and aspirations\, even when particu lar narratives remain hegemonic in the formal archives\, such as those tha t attend to the former “colonial capital” or current “world class” futures\, for example. While acknowledging the longue duree of colonialis m in our built environment\, in this session we intentionally embrace othe r entangled embodiments that speak from African places. Here\, we are attu ned to the vernacular articulations of the city across different times\, a nd that reference the trajectories of urban life when the African was conc eived of primarily as the ‘native\,’ then the ‘worker\,’ and now t he ‘owner.’ Through these porous categories\, we signal other epistemi cs towards more expansive city intimacies. Drawing on music videos\, super hero animations\, adolescent drawings\, grassroots environmental efforts\, slang vernaculars\, student protests\, cultural proverbs and more\, we se ek to share tools and techniques to enable more situated encounters with d iverse African cities. Our primary objective is to encourage co-learning a bout African urban spaces through articulations that are often not legitim ated as critical tools\, yet which register important and insurgent claims about the histories\, presents and futures of our dynamic African cities.
\nRegister for the session: \;https://mau-se.zoom.us/meeting/reg ister/UnY5RUEJTuWhZq1DGCOURA
\nFor more information\, please cli ck here. \;
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news333@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250217T151109 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250217T000000 SUMMARY:Modes of Experiential Pedagogy DESCRIPTION:This session explores strategies for experiential learning in A frican cities\, based on three different teaching programs. The aim is to explore different practical and pedagogical dimensions of three approaches : \\r\\n– the first examines how partnership can enable an embodied eng agement with the city through a research studio run by the African Centre for Cities and the University of Basel (Nancy Odendaal)\;\\r\\n– the sec ond reflects on the piloting of a new urban planning curriculum at the Uni versity of Zambia working with Shack-Slum Dweller International affiliates in Lusaka (Gilbert Siame)\;\\r\\n– the third presents an urban humaniti es research studio in Lamu\, Kenya\, run by the University of Basel with l ocal community-based organisation Lamu Youth Alliance as an immersive 6-we ek research experience (Maren Larsen\; Ruth Lozi). \\r\\nThe discussion ( moderated by Kenny Cupers) will unpack what it means to engage the experie nce of those in the classroom\, and the diverse relationships (of epistemo logically and geographical distances and proximities) that straddle the cl ass room and the African city.\\r\\nFor more information\, please click he re [https://teachingafricancities.vt.domains/uncategorized/workshops/]. X-ALT-DESC:This session explores strategies for experiential learning in African cities\, based on three different teaching programs. The aim is t o explore different practical and pedagogical dimensions of three approach es: \;
\n– the first examines how partnership can enable an em bodied engagement with the city through a research studio run by the Afric an Centre for Cities and the University of Basel (Nancy Odendaal)\;
\n< p>– the second reflects on the piloting of a new urban planning curricul um at the University of Zambia working with Shack-Slum Dweller Internation al affiliates in Lusaka (Gilbert Siame)\;\n– the third presents a n urban humanities research studio in Lamu\, Kenya\, run by the University of Basel with local community-based organisation Lamu Youth Alliance as a n immersive 6-week research experience (Maren Larsen\; Ruth Lozi). \;< /p>\n
The discussion (moderated by Kenny Cupers) will unpack what it mea ns to engage the experience of those in the classroom\, and the diverse re lationships (of epistemologically and geographical distances and proximiti es) that straddle the class room and the African city.
\nFor more in formation\, please click here. \;
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news327@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241213T210752 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241216T093000 SUMMARY:Material Investigations: Concrete in Switzerland DESCRIPTION:The course explores some major and minor intellectual tradition s upon which materially oriented methods of urban research are based. Duri ng the seminar\, students developed critical understandings of material ag ency and ecology\, as well as their connections to urban governance\, extr active capitalism\, and colonial legacies. These studies were complemented by practical workshops\, where students developed their research agendas into visual essays combining text and images.\\r\\nThe central focus of th is year’s research was concrete\, one of the most controversial building materials. Students examined its environmental and cultural transformatio ns within Switzerland during the 20th century\, paying special attention t o its role in reshaping landscapes\, infrastructures\, and socio-economic dynamics. By analyzing concrete buildings and infrastructures in Basel and other Swiss regions\, students unearthed the material’s impact to both disciplinary debates and broader societal controversies.\\r\\nOn the occas ion of the presentation\, students will showcase their visual essays\, whi ch reflect their research journeys\, from primary site explorations and ph otographic documentation to theoretical analysis and storytelling. Each pr oject highlights unique narratives around the intersections of material an alysis\, urban governance\, and historical change.\\r\\nPlease join the st udents\, the instructor and the guest critics Patrick Düblin\, Makau Kita ta\, Ekaterina Wittwer-Nuzhdina\, and Mariana Santana at Alte Universität \, Rheinsprung 9\, Seminarraum -1\, between 9:30 and 12:00. X-ALT-DESC:The course explores some major and minor intellectual traditi ons upon which materially oriented methods of urban research are based. Du ring the seminar\, students developed critical understandings of material agency and ecology\, as well as their connections to urban governance\, ex tractive capitalism\, and colonial legacies. These studies were complement ed by practical workshops\, where students developed their research agenda s into visual essays combining text and images.
\nThe central focus of this year’s research was concrete\, one of the most controversial bui lding materials. Students examined its environmental and cultural transfor mations within Switzerland during the 20th century\, paying special attent ion to its role in reshaping landscapes\, infrastructures\, and socio-econ omic dynamics. By analyzing concrete buildings and infrastructures in Base l and other Swiss regions\, students unearthed the material’s impact to both disciplinary debates and broader societal controversies.
\nOn t he occasion of the presentation\, students will showcase their visual essa ys\, which reflect their research journeys\, from primary site exploration s and photographic documentation to theoretical analysis and storytelling. Each project highlights unique narratives around the intersections of mat erial analysis\, urban governance\, and historical change.
\nPlease join the students\, the instructor and the guest critics Patrick Düblin\, Makau Kitata\, Ekaterina Wittwer-Nuzhdina\, and Mariana Santana at Alte U niversität\, Rheinsprung 9\, Seminarraum -1\, between 9:30 and 12:00.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241216T120000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news314@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241128T215506 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241212T161500 SUMMARY:Book Launch "The Earth that Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design" by Kenny Cupers DESCRIPTION:It is with great pleasure that we are inviting you to: \\r\\nL and\, Design\, Empire - A panel discussion on occasion of the publication of "The Earth that Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Des ign" [https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330210/] by Kenny Cupers. \\r\\nI n his newest book Kenny Cupers\, professor for architectural history and u rban studies\, traces the rise of planetary design to an imperialist disco urse about human influence on the early environment. Kenny Cupers argues t hat to understand how the earth became an object of design\, we need to ra dically shift the terms of analysis. Rather than describing how new design ideas and practices traveled and transformed people and places across the globe\, his book interrogates the politics of life and earth underpinning this process. It demonstrates how approaches to modern housing\, landscap e design\, and infrastructure planning are indebted to an understanding of planetary and human ecology fueled by settler colonialism and imperial am bition.\\r\\nOn the occasion of this publication\, Lorena Rizzo\, Luregn L enggenhager\, Matthew Vollgraff and Ernest Sewordor will discuss historica l relations between land\, design\, and empire from their respective disci plinary and situated perspectives. Together\, they will explore colonial d urabilities in the shaping of landscapes\, situating these discussions wit hin broader debates on empire and decolonization. X-ALT-DESC:It is with great pleasure that we are inviting you to: \;
\nLand\, Design\, Empire - A panel discussion on o ccasion of the publication of \; "The Earth that Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Pla netary Design"by Kenny Cupers. \;
\nIn his newest book Kenny Cupers\, professor for architectural history and urban studies\, traces the rise of planetary design to an imperialist discourse about human influence on the early environment. Kenny Cupers argues that t o understand how the earth became an object of design\, we need to radical ly shift the terms of analysis. Rather than describing how new design idea s and practices traveled and transformed people and places across the glob e\, his book interrogates the politics of life and earth underpinning this process. It demonstrates how approaches to modern housing\, landscape des ign\, and infrastructure planning are indebted to an understanding of plan etary and human ecology fueled by settler colonialism and imperial ambitio n.
\nOn the occasion of this publication\, Lorena Rizzo\, Lu regn Lenggenhager\, Matthew Vollgraff and Ernest Sewordor will di scuss historical relations between land\, design\, and empire from their r espective disciplinary and situated perspectives. Together\, they will exp lore colonial durabilities in the shaping of landscapes\, situating these discussions within broader debates on empire and decolonization.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241212T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news313@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241202T120230 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241206T161500 SUMMARY:Jacob S. Dlamini (Princeton University): "The Archive Machine: The Truth Commission and the Archaeology of Apartheid" DESCRIPTION:It has been 26 years since South Africa’s Truth and Reconcili ation Commission (TRC) delivered its final report to then-President Nelson Mandela\, and 21 years since the TRC’s Amnesty Committee presented its findings to Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeki. There has developed during that time a range of views about the commission\, most of them critical. I n my lecture\, I aim to present the TRC as an archive machine\, a device t hat sought (and succeeded more than its critics are prepared to acknowledg e) to make possible new lines of historical inquiry\, to set the condition s for the posing of new questions about the past\, and to help many gain a better understanding of apartheid while imagining new futures. Building o n Adam Sitze’s notion of the TRC as an impossible machine\, I draw atten tion to the thinginess of the commission\, to its status as a machine\, a contrivance designed to produce certain effects. These effects include the tracks\, the leads\, the traces and the suspects whose actions\, names an d whereabouts the TRC flagged but about which it did or could little. The lecture\, then\, is a guarded defense of the TRC and its legacy.\\r\\nJaco b Dlamini is Associate Professor of History at Princeton University. He i s a historian of Africa\, with an interest in precolonial\, colonial and p ostcolonial African History. Dlamini obtained his Ph.D. from Yale Universi ty in 2012 and is also a graduate of Wits University in South Africa and S ussex University in England. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Univ ersity of Barcelona\, Spain\, from November 2011 to April 2015\, and was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University from August 2014 to May 2015. As a qualified field guide\, he is also interested in comparative and global h istories of conservation and national parks. X-ALT-DESC:It has been 26 years since South Africa’s Truth and Reconci liation Commission (TRC) delivered its final report to then-President Nels on Mandela\, and 21 years since the TRC’s Amnesty Committee presented it s findings to Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeki. There has developed durin g that time a range of views about the commission\, most of them critical. In my lecture\, I aim to present the TRC as an archive machine\, a device that sought (and succeeded more than its critics are prepared to acknowle dge) to make possible new lines of historical inquiry\, to set the conditi ons for the posing of new questions about the past\, and to help many gain a better understanding of apartheid while imagining new futures. Building on Adam Sitze’s notion of the TRC as an impossible machine\, I draw att ention to the thinginess of the commission\, to its status as a machine\, a contrivance designed to produce certain effects. These effects include t he tracks\, the leads\, the traces and the suspects whose actions\, names and whereabouts the TRC flagged but about which it did or could little. Th e lecture\, then\, is a guarded defense of the TRC and its legacy.
\nJacob Dlamini \;is Associate Professor of History at Princeton University. He is a historian of Africa\, with an interest in p recolonial\, colonial and postcolonial African History. Dlamini obtained h is Ph.D. from Yale University in 2012 and is also a graduate of Wits Unive rsity in South Africa and Sussex University in England. He held a postdoct oral fellowship at the University of Barcelona\, Spain\, from November 201 1 to April 2015\, and was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University from Au gust 2014 to May 2015. As a qualified field guide\, he is also interested in comparative and global histories of conservation and national parks.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241206T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news319@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241118T101850 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241122T161500 SUMMARY:Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi (Howard University): Lagos Life: Streets\, Maps\, History (Carl Schlettwein Lecture 2024) DESCRIPTION:Urban questions have taken on a new urgency in Africa\, as citi es like Lagos continue to grow faster and more intensely\, seemingly every day. Most often\, engagement with these cities is framed in terms of thei r problems: too crowded\, too disorganized\, too frenetic. But how should we understand the ways the past shaped and produced this present? “Lagos Life” explores the histories of Lagos’s streets as markers of the mom ents of placemaking\, identity\, freedom\, and displacement in the ninetee nth century. It begins with the premise that Lagos’s streets offer impor tant clues and cues to the ways to ask\, analyze and frame the historica l and contemporary narratives of the city.\\r\\nMuch like the ways that co urt transcripts and letters can be read and analyzed to yield insights abo ut the past\, street names in Lagos bear witness to the ways that the city ’s pasts intertwine. In 1868\, an English-speaking Yorùbá court clerk named all the newly paved streets in Lagos\, in the wake of new colonial i nfrastructure that was quickly taking root. Rather than superimposing Brit ish names or even a stripped-down numbering scheme\, the mostly indigenous Yorùbá names he chose reflect a remarkable archive of local priorities\ , symbols\, events\, places\, and people.\\r\\nBy mapping the history of t hese streets\, and the encounters that Lagosians had in them\, this presen tation demonstrates how digital tools can be deployed in reading the urban fabric of Lagos Island as an archive of its own history. Old Lagos — th e city\, waterways and island — is never more visible in the archival re cord than when it is marked for destruction\, division\, or “civilizatio n\,” thus\, I use these maps\, documents and indigenous sources to recon struct the past\, in place.\\r\\nTrained as both historian and computer en gineer\, Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi’s research into the history of Lagos \, Nigeria combines a set of interdisciplinary interests in urban studies\ , mapmaking and technology. Her forthcoming book\, Imagine Lagos\, explor es Lagos’s mid-19th-century history\, rebuilding its past as a series of encounters: between men and women\, between the past and present\, enslav ed and free\, Eko (the old town) and Lagos\, and between the land and lago ons. She is an Associate Professor of History at Howard University\, and s he received her PhD in History from NYU in 2016. X-ALT-DESC:Urban questions have taken on a new urgency in Africa\, as ci ties like Lagos continue to grow faster and more intensely\, seemingly eve ry day. Most often\, engagement with these cities is framed in terms of th eir problems: too crowded\, too disorganized\, too frenetic. But how shoul d we understand the ways the past shaped and produced this present? “Lag os Life” explores the histories of Lagos’s streets as markers of the m oments of placemaking\, identity\, freedom\, and displacement in the ninet eenth century. It begins with the premise that Lagos’s streets offer imp ortant clues \;and \;cues to the ways to ask\, analyze an d frame the historical and contemporary narratives of the city.
\nMu ch like the ways that court transcripts and letters can be read and analyz ed to yield insights about the past\, street names in Lagos bear witness t o the ways that the city’s pasts intertwine. In 1868\, an English-speaki ng Yorùbá court clerk named all the newly paved streets in Lagos\, in th e wake of new colonial infrastructure that was quickly taking root. Rather than superimposing British names or even a stripped-down numbering scheme \, the mostly indigenous Yorùbá names he chose reflect a remarkable arch ive of local priorities\, symbols\, events\, places\, and people.
\nBy mapping the history of these streets\, and the encounters that Lagosian s had in them\, this presentation demonstrates how digital tools can be de ployed in reading the urban fabric of Lagos Island as an archive of its ow n history. Old Lagos — the city\, waterways and island — is never more visible in the archival record than when it is marked for destruction\, d ivision\, or “civilization\,” thus\, I use these maps\, documents and indigenous sources to reconstruct the past\, in place.
\nTrained as both historian and computer engineer\, \;Ademide Adelusi-Adelu yi’s \; research into the history of Lagos\, Nigeria combin es a set of interdisciplinary interests in urban studies\, mapmaking and t echnology. Her forthcoming book\, \;Imagine Lagos\, explores Lagos’s mid-19th-century history\, rebuilding its past as a series of en counters: between men and women\, between the past and present\, enslaved and free\, Eko (the old town) and Lagos\, and between the land and lagoons . She is an Associate Professor of History at Howard University\, and she received her PhD in History from NYU in 2016.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241122T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news318@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241024T131751 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241101T161500 SUMMARY:Nancy Rose Hunt: Traces or Cases? DESCRIPTION:What is the difference between traces or cases in historical wr iting? What is the value of each or of working with other such heuristic t erms (strands\, slices\, episodes\, the sutured)? How may each be used\, d eveloped\, or combined when writing about Africa? With a touch of a retros pective into my earlier work—the reproductive\, the sadistic\, and the a coustic—I will share parts of a current attempt to investigate the psych iatric and the turbulent in relation to Congolese colonial spaces and aber rant figures. \\r\\nNancy Rose Hunt is author of two prize-winning monog raphs\, A Colonial Lexicon (Duke 1999\; Herskovits) and A Nervous State (D uke 2016: Klein Prize)\, numerous essays and articles\, and the co-edited Psychiatric Contours: New African Histories of Madness (Duke 2024). Suturi ng New Medical Histories of Africa (Lit Vertag 2013) began as her Carl Sch lettwein Lecture in Basel.\\r\\nA co-edited volume (with Pedro Monaville) devoted to the Kinshasa-based comic artist\, Papa Mfumu’eto 1er\, will a ppear (Leuven) in 2025. After 19 years at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)\, she moved to a professorship at the University of Florida. About the same time\, with Achille Mbembe\, she began Duke’s ongoing Theory in Forms book series. X-ALT-DESC:What is the difference between traces or cases in historical writing? What is the value of each or of working with other such heuristic terms (strands\, slices\, episodes\, the sutured)? How may each be used\, developed\, or combined when writing about Africa? With a touch of a retr ospective into my earlier work—the reproductive\, the sadistic\, and the acoustic—I will share parts of a current attempt to investigate the psy chiatric and the turbulent in relation to Congolese colonial spaces and ab errant figures. \;
\nNancy Rose Hunt \;is a uthor of two prize-winning monographs\, A Colonial Lexicon (Duke 1999\; He rskovits) and A Nervous State (Duke 2016: Klein Prize)\, numerous essays a nd articles\, and the co-edited Psychiatric Contours: New African Historie s of Madness (Duke 2024). Suturing New Medical Histories of Africa (Lit Ve rtag 2013) began as her Carl Schlettwein Lecture in Basel.
\nA co-ed ited volume (with Pedro Monaville) devoted to the Kinshasa-based comic art ist\, Papa Mfumu’eto 1er\, will appear (Leuven) in 2025. Afte r 19 years at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)\, she moved to a prof essorship at the University of Florida. About the same time\, with Achille Mbembe\, she began Duke’s ongoing Theory in Forms book series.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241101T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news308@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240913T161833 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241023 SUMMARY:Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures DESCRIPTION:Under the heading of "Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures" [h ttps://www.ici-berlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Poster_planetary-desi gn.pdf]\, the organizing team\, led by Urban Studies lecturer Laura Nkula- Wenz\, has put together an exciting program of panel discussions\, round t ables\, and artistic interventions hosted at the Institute for Cultural In quiry (23-25th October) and Spore Initiative (26th October). The event bri ngs together critical thinking and doing around the role of design in maki ng\, unmaking and remaking worlds. Two keynotes by Prof Andrea Ballester o (USC) and Prof Noortje Marres (Warwick) will be streamed live to the pu blic. To learn more about the event\, please visit: https://www.ici-berl in.org/events/planetary-design-reclaiming-futures/ [https://www.ici-berlin .org/events/planetary-design-reclaiming-futures/] X-ALT-DESC:Under the heading of \;
"Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures"\, the organizing team\, led by
Urban Studies lecturer Laura Nkula-Wenz\, has put together an exciting pro
gram of panel discussions\, round tables\, and artistic interventions host
ed at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (23-25th October) and Spore Initi
ative (26th October). The event brings together critical thinking and doin
g around the role of design in making\, unmaking and remaking worlds.
\;Two keynotes by Prof \;Andrea Ballestero (USC) and Prof \;Noortj
e Marres (Warwick) will be streamed live to the public.
To le
arn more about the event\, please visit: \;http
s://www.ici-berlin.org/events/planetary-design-reclaiming-futures/&nbs
p\;
Under the heading of \; "Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures"\, the organizing team\, led by Urban Studies lecturer Laura Nkula-Wenz\, has put together an exciting pro gram of panel discussions\, round tables\, and artistic interventions host ed at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (23-25th October) and Spore Initi ative (26th October). The event brings together critical thinking and doin g around the role of design in making\, unmaking and remaking worlds. \;
\nStarting from the intersection of design\, infrastructure\, and the planetary environment\, it offers a generative platform open to artis ts\, academics\, and activists for rethinking design’s role in producing the present and for developing alternative planetary futures. Reflecting on how design makes worlds in the 21st century requires an interdisciplina ry effort that addresses it as an intersectional\, multi-faceted phenomeno n. Design becomes not only an object of empirical study but also a concept ual lens that might open up new ways of articulating transdisciplinary cri tique.
\nA central goal of this conference is thus to open up a nove l field: the planetary study of design. This aspiration motivates studying design as an expansive field of socio-material processes and place-based practices with planetary implications. The conference aims to delineate th is field by focusing on how epistemological and ontological aspects of des ign inform our understandings of planetary change\, environmental manageme nt\, coloniality\, governmentality\, and the climate crisis but also democ ratic reconstruction. The insistence on ‘planetarity’ comes from a rec ognition that these are world-historical conditions\, without overlooking the locally situated\, contested\, and contingent nature of their manifest ations. Planetarity evokes the concepts of synchronicity\, discontinuity\, and friction.
\nSupporting historically\, conceptually\, and ethnog raphically rich inquiries\, the conference hopes to develop a new conversa tion about design that spans diverse disciplines\, geographies\, and metho dological orientations that straddle the poetic and the pragmatic\, the cr itical and the constructive. Thus\, this gathering is at once looking ahea d while also reckoning with inherited and continuing injustices that still haunt collective planetary futures.
\nTwo keynotes by Prof \;An
drea Ballestero (USC) and Prof \;Noortje Marres (Warwick) will be stre
amed live to the public.
To learn more about the event\, please visi
t: \;https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/planetar
y-design-reclaiming-futures/ \;
We live in a time when concrete dominates the urban landscape in many major African cities (Choplin\, 2023) and the city is constantly under construction and destruction. We live in a time when we cannot deny that precarity is ever pervasive. Uncertainties\, ever certain. In the so- called concrete jungle\, not everything is concrete. Yet\, desires and dre ams for more concrete opportunities\, possibilities and futures persist. T his presentation examines how (in)concrete time is perceived\, negotiated and resisted in Lagos\, a "city of the future"\, by real estate developers and youth. In doing so\, I argue that the real estate developers (in conc ert with some politicians) have embarked on an Afropolitan Imagineering pr oject of owambe urbanism. Afropolitan Imagineering refers to the productio n of new images/narratives of Africa and Africans as world-class and cosmo politan. Owambe urbanism is a spatio-temporal neoliberal project concernin g destination\, arrival and place-making\, which promises a shared and hap py future for all urban dwellers. I also assert that owambe urbanism prese nts new opportunities and challenges for youth in terms of the aesthetics and practices of daily life\, particularly the pursuit of enjoyment and lu xury consumption.
\nGrace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin is the Canada Research Chair in Youth and African Urban Futures and an Associate Professor at Que en’s University\, Kingston\, Canada. Her current research examines conte mporary urban transformations on youth identity\, labour practices\, psych osocial well-being\, and future orientation in Lagos and Ibadan\, Nigeria.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20241011T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news307@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240822T173247 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240905T161500 SUMMARY:The Planetary Turn in Human History by Dipesh Chakrabarty DESCRIPTION:Dr. Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History\, South Asian Languages and Civilizations a t the University of Chicago and a leading scholar of postcolonial theory\, subaltern studies\, and the planetary humanities. \\r\\nThe lecture wil l begin by suggesting that when we look back at the last two decades of th e twentieth century\, we find two versions of human history being told at the same time but without reference to each other. One strand consisted of various efforts in the era of decolonization and imperial decline to find places for non-elites - people whom the British socialist G.D. H. Co le once called The Common People and Eric Wolf\, The People Without Hist ory - in historical representations. "History from below" in England\, " Everyday History" in the German-speaking world\, indigenous histories in the settler-colonial nations\, new histories of slavery\, "Subaltern His tory" in South Asia\, feminist histories\, and so on - all represented a global impetus directed towards democratizing the discipline of history. At the same time\, however\, there was yet another story about humans bein g told by scientists\, especially earth-system scientists\, from the 1980 s on - this was the story of how humans\, thanks to their numbers\, techn ology\, and growing levels of consumption\, were becoming a geological age nt\, producing an excess of greenhouse gases that the normal carbon sinks of the planet could not absorb and that was warming up the surface tempe rature of the planet\, producing the environmental problem that we today k now by the name "climate change.” The two stories came together\, both for humanist historians and for scientists\, in the twenty-first century\, giving rise to the idea that humans may be living on the cusp of two dif ferent periods in human history\, the global and the planetary. The last part of the lecture will be devoted to explaining the difference between t he global and the planetary as categories of historical analyses. X-ALT-DESC:Dr. Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguish ed Service Professor of History\, South Asian \;Languages and Civiliza tions at the University of Chicago and a leading scholar of postcolonial t heory\, subaltern \;studies\, and the planetary humanities. \;
\nThe lecture will begin by suggesting that when we look back at the la st two decades of the twentieth century\, we find \;two versions of hu man history being told at the same time but without reference to each othe r. \;One strand consisted \;of various efforts in the era of decol onization and imperial decline to find places for non-elites - people whom the \;British socialist G.D. H. Cole \;once \;called The Comm on People and Eric Wolf\, The People Without History - in \;historical representations. \;"History from below" in England\, "Everyday Histor y" in the German-speaking world\, \;indigenous histories in the settle r-colonial nations\, new histories of slavery\, \;"Subaltern History" in South Asia\, \;feminist histories\, and so on - all represented a global impetus directed towards democratizing the discipline of \;hist ory. At the same time\, however\, there was yet another story about humans being told by scientists\, especially \;earth-system scientists\, fro m the 1980s on - this was the story of how humans\, thanks to \;their numbers\, technology\, and growing levels of consumption\, were becoming a geological agent\, producing an \;excess of greenhouse gases that the normal carbon sinks of the planet could not absorb and that was warming u p the \;surface temperature of the planet\, producing the environmenta l problem that we today know by the name "climate \;change.” The two stories came together\, both for humanist historians and for scientists\, in the twenty-first century\, \;giving rise to the idea that humans m ay be living on the cusp of two different periods in human history\, the g lobal and \;the planetary. The last part of the lecture will be devote d to explaining the difference between the global and the \;planetary as categories of historical analyses.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240905T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news306@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240612T101359 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240620T180000 SUMMARY:Was ist das Freidorf? Ein Rückblick auf alte und neue Wohnideale. DESCRIPTION:Dr. Georg Leidenberger ist Autor des Buches Architect Hannes Meyer and Radical Modernism (Peter Lang\, 2023). Auf dieser Basis fügt e r die 1921 eingeweihte kooperative Genossenschaftssiedlung Freidorf in ihr en historischen Kontext wie auch in die persönlichen Erfahrungen ihres d amals 32-Jahre alten Basler Architekten ein. Hauptfacetten des Freidorfs w ie dessen architektonische Verkörperung einer kollektiven Lebensform und die Verbindung zur Natur sind mit der "sozialen Frage" und der stadtplaner ischen Moderne des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts eng verknüpft. \\r\\nProf. D r. Kenny Cupers (Universität Basel) untersucht in seinem Buch The Earth that Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design (erscheint im September 2024) wie die Siedlungsbewegung\, in dessen Kontext auch das Freidorf entstanden ist\, von imperialen Ambitionen genährt wurde. Er hi nterfragt die Definitionen von Umwelt und Leben\, auf dessen Grundlage die moderne Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert beanspruchte den Planeten umzugest alten.\\r\\nCharlotte Cornélie Truwant ist Mitbegründerin des Basler Ar chitekturbüros “Truwant + Rodet +” und unterrichtet Architektur an de r EPFL. Ihre architektonische Praxis versteht Sie zugleich als einen Forsc hungsprozess\, in dem ökologische Perspektiven\, wie zum Beispiel Wasserk reisläufe\, ernst genommen werden\, um “soziale” Architektur in Anbe tracht der Klimakrise völlig neu zu interpretieren.\\r\\nUm ein Exemplar des Buches\, Architect Hannes Meyer and Radical Modernism (Peter Lang\, 2023)\, zu erhalten\, klicken sie bitte hier [https://www.peterlang.com/d ocument/1337905] X-ALT-DESC:Dr. Georg Leidenberger \;ist Autor des Buches \;A rchitect Hannes Meyer and Radical Modernism \;(Peter Lang\, 2023) . Auf dieser Basis fügt er die 1921 eingeweihte kooperative Genossenschaf tssiedlung Freidorf in ihren \;historischen Kontext wie auch in die pe rsönlichen Erfahrungen ihres damals 32-Jahre alten Basler Architekten ein . Hauptfacetten des Freidorfs wie dessen architektonische Verkörperung ei ner kollektiven Lebensform und die Verbindung zur Natur sind mit der "sozi alen Frage" und der stadtplanerischen Moderne des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts eng verknüpft. \;
\nProf. Dr. Kenny Cupers \;(Universität Basel) untersucht in seinem Buch \;The Earth that Modernism Built : Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design \;(erscheint im Septemb er 2024) wie die Siedlungsbewegung\, in dessen Kontext auch das Freidorf e ntstanden ist\, von imperialen Ambitionen genährt wurde. Er hinterfragt d ie Definitionen von Umwelt und Leben\, auf dessen Grundlage die moderne Ar chitektur im 20. Jahrhundert beanspruchte den Planeten umzugestalten.
\ nCharlotte Cornélie Truwant \;ist Mitbegründerin des Basler Architekturbüros “Truwant + Rodet +” und unterrichtet Arc hitektur an der EPFL. Ihre architektonische Praxis versteht Sie zugleich a ls einen Forschungsprozess\, in dem ökologische Perspektiven\, wie zum Be ispiel Wasserkreisläufe\, ernst genommen werden\, um \;“soziale” Architektur in Anbetracht \;der Klimakrise völlig neu zu interpretier en.
\nUm ein Exemplar des Buches\, \;Architect Hannes Meyer and Radical Modernism \;(Peter Lang\, 2023)\, zu erhalten\, klick en sie bitte hier
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240620T200000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news296@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240415T120444 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240607 SUMMARY:Basel: The Materiality of Art Fairs DESCRIPTION:We are thrilled to announce the launch of the second edition of the "The Materiality of Art Fairs\," a summer school co-organized by Cri tical Urbanisms\, University of Basel\, and the Visiting School programme of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London [https:/ /www.aaschool.ac.uk/academicprogrammes/visitingschool/aavs-basel].\\r\\n The 10-day programme will run in parallel with Art Basel and Basel Social Club\, 7-16 June 2024\, and will take a critical look at world fairs\, exp os\, biennials and triennials\, and the works of artists\, architects\, ur banists\, curators\, and institutions involved in them. This will be done according to a double register of materialism: one inspired by theories an d methodologies of the material turn in the social sciences\, and the othe r one inscribed into the market logic of material consumption and accumula tion that foregrounds phenomena of extractive capitalism and exclusionary urbanism. Students will receive short tutorials on explorative research me thods and storytelling\, and will be granted visitor passes and guided tou rs for Art Basel [https://www.artbasel.com/] and Basel Social Club [https: //www.baselsocialclub.com/] exhibitions to identify and visualize under-ob served social and urban phenomena linked to them\, with particular attenti on to their social and environmental impact.\\r\\nThe summer school promot es diversity and inclusion and is committed to providing equal access to h igh-quality education for all students from both CU\, AA\, and external in stitutions. Full-tuition and partial-tuition scholarships will be offered to the broadest possible number of students based on merit and financial n eed. Please note that a minimum of 10 full-tuition scholarships will be re served for CU students. \\r\\nStudents who wish to apply for a scholarshi p should submit a CV and a one-page motivation letter outlining academic a chievements\, interests in attending the summer school\, a brief statement of purposes\, and the motivation for requesting a full or partial scholar ship to aavs.basel@gmail.com [mailto:aavs.basel@gmail.com] by 6 May 2024. Please do not forget to mention if you are currently enrolled at CU. Note: Regardless of receiving a scholarship\, all students are required to pay a £60 registration fee via the AA website [https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aca demicprogrammes/visitingschool/aavs-basel]\, covering administration costs .\\r\\nAll attending students receive a certificate of attendance from the AA. CU students who complete the program will then have the possibility o f validating 3 CPs for their MA via a learning contract with Fabrizio Fu riassi (fabrizio.furiassi@unibas.ch [mailto:fabrizio.furiassi@unibas.ch]) who serves as Assessor. More information on how to fulfill the learning co ntract will be communicated once the student is fully registered.\\r\\n\\r \\nYou can find more information about the summer school on the platforms below:\\r\\nAA Visiting School Programme [https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/acade micprogrammes/visitingschool/aavs-basel]\\r\\nInstagram @aavs_basel [https ://www.instagram.com/aavs_basel/]\\r\\nInstagram @critical_urbanisms [http s://www.instagram.com/critical_urbanisms/]\\r\\n\\r\\nShould you have any questions\, please address them to aavs.basel@gmail.com [mailto:aavs.basel @gmail.com]. X-ALT-DESC:We are thrilled to announce the launch of the second edition of the "The Materiality of Art Fairs\," \;a summer sc hool co-organized by Critical Urbanisms\, University of Basel\, and the Visiting School programme of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.
\n\;The 10-day programme will run in parallel with Art Basel and Basel Social Club\, 7-16 June 2024< /strong>\, and will take a critical look at world fairs\, expos\, biennial s and triennials\, and the works of artists\, architects\, urbanists\, cur ators\, and institutions involved in them. This will be done according to a double register of materialism: one inspired by theories and methodologi es of the material turn in the social sciences\, and the other one inscrib ed into the market logic of material consumption and accumulation that for egrounds phenomena of extractive capitalism and exclusionary urbanism. Stu dents will receive short tutorials on explorative research methods and sto rytelling\, and will be granted visitor passes and guided tours for Art Basel and Basel Social Club exhibitions to identify and visuali ze under-observed social and urban phenomena linked to them\, with particu lar attention to their social and environmental impact.
\nThe summer school promotes diversity and inclusion and is committed to providing equ al access to high-quality education for all students from both CU\, AA\, a nd external institutions. Full-tuition and partial-tuition scholar ships will be offered to the broadest possible number of students based on merit and financial need. Please note that a minimum of 10 full-tuition scholarships will be reserved for CU students. \;
\nStudents who wish to apply for a scholarship should submit a CV and a one-page motivation letter outlining academic achievements\, inte rests in attending the summer school\, a brief statement of purposes\, and the motivation for requesting a full or partial scholarship to aavs.basel@gmail.comby 6 May 2024 . Please do not forget to mention if you are currently enrolled a t CU. Note: Regardless of receiving a scholarship\, all students are requi red to pay a £60 registration fee via the AA website\, coveri ng administration costs.
\nAll attending students receive a certific ate of attendance from the AA. CU students who complete the progra m will then have the possibility of validating 3 CPs for \;their MA \;via a learning contract with Fabrizio Furiassi (fabrizio.furiassi@unibas.ch) who serve s as Assessor. More information on how to fulfill the learning contract wi ll be communicated once the student is fully registered.
\n\nYou can find more information about the summer school on the platforms below:
\n\n\nInstagram @critical_ urbanisms
\n\nShould you have any questions\, please address them to aavs.basel@gmail.com.&n bsp\;
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240616 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news281@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240222T141506 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240605T150000 SUMMARY:Critical temporalities DESCRIPTION:In which time(s) are histories of our global urban present to b e written? Postcolonial scholarship has emphasized the importance of multi ple\, entangled temporalities in order to account for the history of our s hared humanity. With the notion of “History 2\,” Dipesh Chakrabarty pr oposed subaltern histories that challenge progressive historicism. Stefano s Geroulanos challenges how we interpret history by focusing on power and time\, and the invention of historical epochs. Ann Stoler posited the noti on of imperial durabilities and colonial reactivations to better account f or the multiple times in which people live. Lisa Lowe’s “past conditio nal temporality\,” focuses on the what-could-have-beens erased by the gl obalization of liberal capitalism. Sociologists and critical theorists hav e also pointed to the memories and “hauntings” that defy modern and ev en postmodern temporalities. To what extent can these and other propositio ns help us to rethink temporality in global urban history? X-ALT-DESC:In which time(s) are histories of our global urban present to
be written? Postcolonial scholarship has emphasized the importance of mul
tiple\, entangled temporalities in order to account for the history of our
shared humanity. With the notion of “History 2\,” Dipesh Chakrabarty
proposed subaltern histories that challenge progressive historicism. Stefa
nos Geroulanos challenges how we interpret history by focusing on power an
d time\, and the invention of historical epochs. Ann Stoler posited the no
tion of imperial durabilities and colonial reactivations to better account
for the multiple times in which people live. Lisa Lowe’s “past condit
ional temporality\,” focuses on the what-could-have-beens erased
b
y the globalization of liberal capitalism. Sociologists and critical theor
ists have also pointed to the memories and “hauntings” that defy moder
n and even postmodern temporalities. To what extent can these and other pr
opositions help us to rethink temporality in global urban history?
In her presentation Patricia will explore how in current heri tage practices and policies\, there is a prevailing hegemonic discourse th at privileges Western standards by focusing on the artistic and the histor ical\, the monumental and the tangible – what Laurajane Smith (2006) cal ls an “Authorized Heritage Discourse.” Against this background\, Patri cia will discuss counter-narratives through the example of modern housing in Mozambique\; a legacy that is often described as “shared heritage” because of its colonial genealogy. Through this legacy\, the presentation will interrogate the limits of the heritage values that underpin the AHD a nd will foreground new values and accounts based on the socio-cultural bac kground of Mozambique and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240529T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news298@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240520T120544 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240528T161500 SUMMARY:SPECULATIVE VISIONS OF THE GREAT GREEN WALL X ORIT HALPERN - SOUTH DESIGNS FOR PLANETARY FUTURES LECTURE DESCRIPTION:To join the zoom conversation\, please register here [https:// unibas.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2-kyn5eMTnKUuU2G7-ZtSg#/registration] X-ALT-DESC:To join the zoom conversation\, please register \;here
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240528T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news280@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240520T163257 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240522T150000 SUMMARY:Worldmaking DESCRIPTION:This event features speakers whose work foregrounds the making of worlds from connections\, processes\, and peoples other than those in E uro-American accounts of imperialist globalization. It explores how the no tion of “worldmaking\,” coming from literary studies\, can serve to bu ild alternative histories and theories of the global urban. Kaysha Corinea ldi speaks about how networks of Afro-Caribbean activists reshaped Panama and New York. Michael Goebel discusses how anti-imperial activism in inter war Paris sowed the seeds of Third Worldism. And Prita Meier discusses how the Indian Ocean\, as engaged from Swahili port cities\, challenges our u nderstanding of globalization. Together they explore how urban and ecologi cal accounts of anticolonialism may advance theory for our urban planet. X-ALT-DESC:This event features speakers whose work foregrounds the makin
g of worlds from connections\, processes\, and peoples other than those in
Euro-American accounts of imperialist globalization. It explores how the
notion of “worldmaking\,”
coming from literary studies\, can ser
ve to build alternative histories and theories of the global urban. Kaysha
Corinealdi speaks about how networks of Afro-Caribbean activists reshaped
Panama and New York. Michael Goebel discusses how anti-imperial activism
in interwar Paris sowed the seeds of Third Worldism. And Prita Meier discu
sses how the Indian Ocean\, as engaged from Swahili port cities\, challeng
es our understanding of globalization. Together they explore how urban and
ecological accounts of anticolonialism may advance theory for our urban p
lanet.
The Caribe Mutuo team will discuss their work on dialogue and collective action based on common cultural practices in the hydric territ ories of Ciénaga del Guájaro. Their ongoing project in the Caribbean reg ion of Colombia asks critical questions about how to acknowledge\, share\, connect\, and strengthen the processes of mutual aid through autonomous c ultural practices\, which have developed in close relation to the surround ing water bodies. How can design be open to transformation and appropriati on to foster the local circulation of trans-disciplinary cultural processe s?
\nThe Caribe Mutuo project team will be in conversation with anth ropologist and writer Andrea Ballestero\, whose work explores the unexpect ed ethical and technical entanglements through which experts understand wa ter in Latin America. Andrea Ballestero is currently an Associate Professo r of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She has author ed several books\, including 'A Future History of Water' and 'Experimentin g with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis.' Since 2011\, she has run the Ethnography Studio\, an interdisciplinary experimental space that brings together students interested in the peculiarities of ethnography as a text ual form\, as a research strategy\, and as a modality of knowledge product ion.
\nTo join the zoom conversation\, please register \;here
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240520T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news279@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240222T114235 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240411T150000 SUMMARY:Urban Undersides DESCRIPTION:Mainstream histories of our current moment(s) – whether polit ical\, eco-nomic\, ecological or social – centre Europe\, and\, in parti cular\, elite nar-rations of Europe. In so doing\, oth-er histories are pu t aside\, become “off-worlds” in the words of Malcolm Ferdinand. What do historians need to remember/forget/unlearn to be able to center these o ffworlds in their praxes? And how can we move forward in the absence of ar chives\, and/or erasures in formal (colonial) repositories? In addition\, what meth-ods and approaches can support scholars’ bids to intentionally include these urban undersides\, towards contributing to liberatory praxi s? X-ALT-DESC:Mainstream histories of our current moment(s) – whether pol itical\, eco-nomic\, ecological or social – centre Europe\, and\, in par ticular\, elite nar-rations of Europe. In so doing\, oth-er histories are put aside\, become “off-worlds” in the words of Malcolm Ferdinand. Wha t do historians need to remember/forget/unlearn to be able to center these offworlds in their praxes? And how can we move forward in the absence of archives\, and/or erasures in formal (colonial) repositories? In addition\ , what meth-ods and approaches can support scholars’ bids to intentional ly include these urban undersides\, towards contributing to liberatory pra xis?
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240411T170000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news290@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240317T222257 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240409T161500 SUMMARY:South Designs: Planetary Futures DESCRIPTION:In 2022\, we launched a global call for projects to answer the se pressing questions. Over 150 multidisciplinary teams from across the wo rld responded. In dialogue with emerging thought and design leaders\, the six winning project teams will reflect on their collaborative and speculat ive work with communities\, sites\, and materials and discuss how current social and ecological theory confronts the pragmatics and urgencies of mak ing things together.\\r\\nTuesday 9 April\, 4.15-6 pm CET Designing with t he Planet x Lindsay Bremner Registration Link: https://unibas.zoom.us/we binar/register/WN_8CNzd_t-Qb6L09DC9KksGw [https://unibas.zoom.us/webinar/r egister/WN_8CNzd_t-Qb6L09DC9KksGw] All events are open to the public\, an d you can revisits past talks on the Critical Urbanisms Youtube Channel: h ttps://www.youtube.com/@CriticalUrbanisms/playlists [https://www.youtube.c om/@CriticalUrbanisms/playlists] X-ALT-DESC:In 2022\, \;we launched a global call for projects to ans wer these pressing questions. Over 150 multidisciplinary teams from across the world responded. In dialogue with emerging thought and design leaders \, the sixwinning project teams will reflect on their co llaborative and speculative work with communities\, sites\, and materials and discuss how current social and ecological theory confronts the pragmat ics and urgencies of making things together.
\nTuesday 9 April\, 4.1
5-6 pm CET
Designing with the Planet x Lindsay Bremner \
;
Registration Link: https://unibas.zoom.us/webinar/regis
ter/WN_8CNzd_t-Qb6L09DC9KksGw
All events are open
to the public\, and you can revisits past talks on the Critical
Urbanisms Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CriticalUrbanisms/playlists
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240409T180000
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:news289@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch
DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240317T221507
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240326T161500
SUMMARY:South Designs: Planetary Futures
DESCRIPTION:In 2022\, we launched a global call for projects to answer the
se pressing questions. Over 150 multidisciplinary teams from across the wo
rld responded. In dialogue with emerging thought and design leaders\, the
six winning project teams will reflect on their collaborative and speculat
ive work with communities\, sites\, and materials and discuss how current
social and ecological theory confronts the pragmatics and urgencies of mak
ing things together.\\r\\nTuesday 26 March\, 4.15-6 pm CET Caribe Mutuo x
Andrea Ballestero Registration Link: https://unibas.zoom.us/webinar/regi
ster/WN_Q_g0a-SrT8-9ofrpGCg-qg [https://unibas.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN
_Q_g0a-SrT8-9ofrpGCg-qg]\\r\\nAll events are open to the public\, and you
can revisits past talks on the Critical Urbanisms Youtube Channel: https:/
/www.youtube.com/@CriticalUrbanisms/playlists [https://www.youtube.com/@Cr
iticalUrbanisms/playlists]
X-ALT-DESC:
In 2022\, \;we launched a global call for proje cts to answer these pressing questions. Over 150 multidisciplinary teams f rom across the world responded. In dialogue with emerging thought and desi gn leaders\, the sixwinning project teams will reflect o n their collaborative and speculative work with communities\, sites\, and materials and discuss how current social and ecological theory confronts t he pragmatics and urgencies of making things together.
\nTuesday 26
March\, 4.15-6 pm CET
Caribe Mutuo x Andrea Ballestero \
;
Registration Link: https://unibas.zoom.us/webinar/regis
ter/WN_Q_g0a-SrT8-9ofrpGCg-qg
All events are open to t he public\, and you can revisits past talks on the Critical Urban isms Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CriticalUrbanisms/playlists
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240326T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news282@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240227T120541 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240313T181500 SUMMARY:Namibian and Southern African Studies DESCRIPTION:The colloquium addresses current debates in Namibian and Southe rn African Studies and provides a forum for conversations between students and local and international scholars\, artists and activists. The regiona l focus is programmatic\, but we offer multiple opportunities to reflect o n the sessions\, and situate them in broader discourses. We nurture an int ellectual milieu and knowledge practice that transcend rigid institutional and symbolic boundaries between the university and society\, the Global S outh and North\, and disciplines\, fields\, and practices. The colloquium\ , jointly organised by the University of Namibia\, the University of Basel & the Basler Afrika Bibliographien\, is open to students from all levels and guests from within and beyond the university. X-ALT-DESC:The colloquium addresses current debates in Namibian and Sout hern African Studies and provides a forum for conversations between studen ts and local and international scholars\, artists and activists. The regio nal focus is programmatic\, but we offer multiple opportunities to reflect on the sessions\, and situate them in broader discourses. We nurture an i ntellectual milieu and knowledge practice that transcend rigid institution al and symbolic boundaries between the university and society\, the Global South and North\, and disciplines\, fields\, and practices. The colloquiu m\, jointly organised by the University of Namibia\, the University of Bas el &\; the Basler Afrika Bibliographien\, is open to students from all levels and guests from within and beyond the university.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news278@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240222T114247 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240305T150000 SUMMARY:Archival Futures DESCRIPTION:This event features speakers who have employed different method ologies beyond the scope of conventional and "official" archives to reth ink the question of the right to the city\, politics over urban land (in cluding urban commons)\, and water justice. Bhavani Raman's use of GIS t echnology to map recent floods in Chennai connects it to a sense of nostal gia for a time predating the days of colonial hydrological engineering. Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay's recent book\, Streets in Motion explores the Haw kers Sangram Committee archive in Calcutta as a veritable record keeping device to map the commoning ("encroachment") practices by the city's it inerant public. Yahia Shawkat is the author of Egypt's Housing Crisis an d cofounder of 10 Tooba\, an organisation that specializes in data visuali zation and historical mapping. Together their works raise the question of how archives may be viewed as a technology that activates imagination\, no stalgia\, rights-claims\, and belonging. How do we distinguish the histo rians' craft from the work of historical anthropology? How/why do we wri te urban histories that may double up as works of activism and advocacy? X-ALT-DESC:This event features speakers who have employed different meth odologies beyond the scope of con\;ventional and "official" archives t o rethink the ques\;tion of the right to the city\, politics over urba n land (including urban commons)\, and water justice. Bha\;vani Raman' s use of GIS technology to map recent floods in Chennai connects it to a s ense of nostalgia for a time predating the days of colonial hydrolog\; ical engineering. Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay's recent book\, Streets in Motio n explores the Hawkers San\;gram Committee archive in Calcutta as a ve ritable record keeping device to map the commoning ("en\;croachment") practices by the city's itinerant pub\;lic. Yahia Shawkat is the autho r of Egypt's Housing Crisis and cofounder of 10 Tooba\, an organisation th at specializes in data visualization and historical mapping. Together thei r works raise the question of how archives may be viewed as a technology t hat activates imagination\, nostalgia\, rights-claims\, and belonging. How do we distinguish the histo\;rians' craft from the work of historical anthropol\;ogy? How/why do we write urban histories that may double u p as works of activism and advocacy?
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240305T170000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news277@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240220T141119 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20240301T090000 SUMMARY:Critical Urbanisms Career Perspective Day 2024! DESCRIPTION:The morning session\, from 09:00 to 12:00 CET\, is organised together with the Career Service Center [https://www.unibas.ch/de/Univer sitaet/Administration-Services/Vizerektorat-Lehre/Student-Services/Career- Service-Center.html] (CSC) and the Career Advancement Office [https://ww w.unibas.ch/en/University/Administration-Services/Vice-President-for-Resea rch/Career-Advancement.html#:~:text=The%20Career%20Advancement%20Office%20 is\,promotion%20of%20early%20career%20researchers.] (CAO) of the Universit y and will be led by Dr. Birgit Müller (CSC) and Dr. Marianne Mathys (C AO). The session will focus more on the practical aspects of job search\, and will consist of a one-hour workshop on CV writing\, cover letter and interview skills as well as a one-hour workshop on finding and acquiring f unding.\\r\\nPlease note: Individual CV check-up sessions are possible bet ween 09:00 to 10:15 by appointment only. If you’re interested in an indi vidual CV check-up session\, please contact Natalie Schöbitz ( see cc) as soon as possible.\\r\\nFor the afternoon session\, from 14:00 to 16:00 CET\, we will be joined by several guests who work on urban issues from d iverse industries\, as well as Alumni of the Critical Urbanisms Master’s Programme. It will be an opportunity to learn more about meaningful work opportunities and careers in the urban environment\, and explore the possi bilities within the field of urban studies after Master’s Programme.\\r\ \nKindly find the Zoom link or scan the QR-Code on the poster: https://un ibas.zoom.us/j/64377748444 [https://unibas.zoom.us/j/64377748444] | Meet ing ID: 643 7774 8444 X-ALT-DESC:The \;morning session\, from&nbs p\;09:00 to 12:00 CET\, is organised together \;with the \;Career Service Center& nbsp\;(CSC) \;and the Career Advancement Office (CAO) of the Universi ty \;and will be led by \;Dr. Birgit Müller (CSC ) and Dr. Marianne Mathys (CAO). \;The session will f ocus more on the practical aspects of job search\, and will consist of a o ne-hour workshop on CV writing\, cover letter and interview skills as well as a one-hour workshop on finding and acquiring funding.
\nPlease note: Individual CV check-up sessions are possible between 09:00 to 10:15 by appointment only. If you’re interest ed in an individual CV check-up session\, please contact Natalie Schöbitz ( see cc) as soon as possible.
\nFor the \;afternoon se ssion\, \;from \;14:00 to 16:00 CET\, we will be joined by several guests who work on urban issues from diverse in dustries\, as well as Alumni of the Critical Urbanisms Master’s Programm e. It will be an opportunity to learn more about meaningful work opportuni ties and careers in the urban environment\, and explore the possibilities within the field of urban studies after Master’s Programme.
\n
Kindly find the Zoom link or scan the QR-Code on the poster: \;
CANCELLED \;
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news92@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201019T161109 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20210113T000000 SUMMARY:The Coloniality of Infrastructure: Eurafrican Legacies DESCRIPTION:Visit the official website here. \\r\\nKey to the proposed continental merger was infrastructure—not surprising at a time when railways\, ports\, camps\, and other large-scale building projects were facilitating the extraction a nd movement of things for Europe while curtailing the freedom and mobility of Africans on an unprecedented scale. Recent scholarship has emphasized the centrality of Eurafrica and the type of colonialism it mustered in th e history of European integration\, from the EU’s founding intellectual s to its Cold-War-era realization. But continental infrastructure also pl ayed a role in African struggles for independence. Highways\, ports\, and dams became tools of state-building and even mobilized hopes of Panafric an integration and international solidarity. In practice\, however\, larg e-scale infrastructure required technical and financial aid which further entrenched Africa’s asymmetrical relationship to the Global North.\\r\ \nToday\, as Africa enters a new age of development increasingly dominate d by China\, and the EU is in fundamental crisis\, is it still possible t o speak of a Eurafrican present? From the physical imprint of cities and the configuration of intercontinental airline routes\, infrastructure tes tifies to the enduring legacies of Eurafrica. Infrastructure shapes terri tories and governs the mobilities within and across them\, but also serve s to immobilize and externalize bodies and things. The European infrastru cture of the Mediterranean border regime\, in which African migrants are systematically being detained or left to die\, recalls colonial-era polic ies that valued life and dictated death along racial lines. At the same t ime\, European aid focused on infrastructural development in Africa is in creasingly targeted to counter such unwanted migration—without touching the global extraction economies that have roots in European colonial rul e and continue to shape African cities and territories today. Because of these specters of Eurafrica\, the EU seems structurally incapable to come to terms with its colonial past.\\r\\nThis conference proposes to explor e historical continuities in Africa’s relationship with Europe through the lens of infrastructure. What are the infrastructural histories that b ind the unequal destinies of people together across continents\, and how do these legacies shape contemporary lifeworlds and international relatio ns? How does infrastructural violence shape international relations betwe en Africa and Europe\, and how is the legacy of Eurafrica manifested in t he spaces of everyday life? To answer these questions\, the conference in vites scholars from urban studies\, history\, political science\, postcol onial theory\, architecture\, border and migration studies\, and allied f ields. We invite contributions that develop new perspectives of our geop olitical and interconnected urban present through its infrastructural pas ts. Such studies of material and aesthetics relationships between Africa and Europe can focus on questions of lifeworlds\, urban transformation\, migration\, territory\, citizenship\, development\, or related themes. We are particularly interested in studies that can reveal the differential entanglements between people and places\, and locate alternative forms of infrastructure\, imaginaries of belonging\, ongoing struggles for decolo nization\, and practices of world-making that decenter colonial ways of s eeing\, feeling\, and knowing.\\r\\nConfirmed Keynote Speakers: Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia University) Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui (Cornell Unive rsity)\\r\\nScientific Committee: Peo Hansen (Linköping University\, Swed en)\, Edgar Pieterse (University of Cape Town)\, Muriam Haleh Davis (Univ ersity of California Santa Cruz)\, Samia Henni (Cornell University)\, Cha rles Heller (Forensic Oceanography\, Geneva)\, Anne-Isabelle Richard (Uni versity of Leiden)\, Bilgin Ayata (University of Basel\, Sociology)\, Jul ia Tischler (University of Basel\, Centre for African Studies)\, Lorena R izzo (University of Basel\, Centre for African Studies)\, Madeleine Herre n-Oesch (University of Basel\, European Global Studies)\\r\\nCALL FOR PAP ERS (EXPIRED) 10 December 2019\\r\\nConference Organization: The conferenc e is organized by Kenny Cupers\, Urban Studies\, Department of Social Sci ence at the University of Basel\, in collaboration with Sociology\, the C entre for African Studies\, and the Institute for European Global Studies \, as well as the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Tow n. \\r\\nFollow-up Conference: A follow-up conference will take place in c ollaboration with Prof. Edgar Pieterse at the African Centre for Cities a t the University of Cape Town in June 2021. Entitled “Emerging Infrastr uctural Worlds: Mapping Urban Research in Africa\,” this conference wil l map research approaches to transnational infrastructure projects across Africa and their consequences on the ground. X-ALT-DESC:Visit the official website <\;a href="\;https://colonia lityofinfrastructure.com"\;>\;here<\;/a>\;. \;
\nKey t o the proposed continental merger was infrastructure—not surprising at a time when railways\, ports\, camps\, and other large-scale building proje cts were facilitating the extraction and movement of things for Europe whi le curtailing the freedom and mobility of Africans on an unprecedented sca le. Recent scholarship has emphasized the centrality of Eurafrica and the type of colonialism it mustered in the history of European integration\, from the EU’s founding intellectuals to its Cold-War-era realization. But continental infrastructure also played a role in African struggles fo r independence. Highways\, ports\, and dams became tools of state-buildin g and even mobilized hopes of Panafrican integration and international so lidarity. In practice\, however\, large-scale infrastructure required tec hnical and financial aid which further entrenched Africa’s asymmetrical relationship to the Global North.
\nToday\, as Africa enters a new age of development increasingly dominated by China\, and the EU is in fun damental crisis\, is it still possible to speak of a Eurafrican present? From the physical imprint of cities and the configuration of intercontine ntal airline routes\, infrastructure testifies to the enduring legacies o f Eurafrica. Infrastructure shapes territories and governs the mobilities within and across them\, but also serves to immobilize and externalize b odies and things. The European infrastructure of the Mediterranean border regime\, in which African migrants are systematically being detained or left to die\, recalls colonial-era policies that valued life and dictated death along racial lines. At the same time\, European aid focused on in frastructural development in Africa is increasingly targeted to counter s uch unwanted migration—without touching the global extraction economies that have roots in European colonial rule and continue to shape African cities and territories today. Because of these specters of Eurafrica\, th e EU seems structurally incapable to come to terms with its colonial past .
\nThis conference proposes to explore historical continuities in Africa’s relationship with Europe through the lens of infrastructure. W hat are the infrastructural histories that bind the unequal destinies of people together across continents\, and how do these legacies shape conte mporary lifeworlds and international relations? How does infrastructural violence shape international relations between Africa and Europe\, and ho w is the legacy of Eurafrica manifested in the spaces of everyday life? T o answer these questions\, the conference invites scholars from urban stu dies\, history\, political science\, postcolonial theory\, architecture\, border and migration studies\, and allied fields. We invite contribution s that develop new perspectives of our geopolitical and interconnected ur ban present through its infrastructural pasts. Such studies of material a nd aesthetics relationships between Africa and Europe can focus on questi ons of lifeworlds\, urban transformation\, migration\, territory\, citize nship\, development\, or related themes. We are particularly interested i n studies that can reveal the differential entanglements between people and places\, and locate alternative forms of infrastructure\, imaginaries of belonging\, ongoing struggles for decolonization\, and practices of w orld-making that decenter colonial ways of seeing\, feeling\, and knowing .
\nConfirmed Keynote Speakers: Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia Univer sity) Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui (Cornell University)
\nScientific C ommittee: Peo Hansen (Linköping University\, Sweden)\, Edgar Pieterse (Un iversity of Cape Town)\, Muriam Haleh Davis (University of California San ta Cruz)\, Samia Henni (Cornell University)\, Charles Heller (Forensic Oc eanography\, Geneva)\, Anne-Isabelle Richard (University of Leiden)\, Bil gin Ayata (University of Basel\, Sociology)\, Julia Tischler (University of Basel\, Centre for African Studies)\, Lorena Rizzo (University of Base l\, Centre for African Studies)\, Madeleine Herren-Oesch (University of B asel\, European Global Studies)
\nCALL FOR PAPERS (EXPIRED) 10 Dece mber 2019
\nConference Organization: The conference is organized by Kenny Cupers\, Urban Studies\, Department of Social Science at the Univer sity of Basel\, in collaboration with Sociology\, the Centre for African Studies\, and the Institute for European Global Studies\, as well as the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town.
\nFollow -up Conference: A follow-up conference will take place in collaboration wi th Prof. Edgar Pieterse at the African Centre for Cities at the Universit y of Cape Town in June 2021. Entitled “Emerging Infrastructural Worlds: Mapping Urban Research in Africa\,” this conference will map research approaches to transnational infrastructure projects across Africa and the ir consequences on the ground.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20210115T000000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news111@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201201T102720 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201207T180000 SUMMARY:"Engaging Pluriversal Futures": Lecture by Giulia Torino DESCRIPTION:While in Latin America the borders that mark the urban space ha ve long been racial apparatuses of control\, inequality\, and necropower\, they have also been devices of tactical operability that recall decolonia l politics of making place\, such as that of the Maroons’ palenques. In locating these considerations within the “urban”\, the lecture explore s the politics of emplacement operated by Afro-Colombian dwellers in conte mporary Bogotá. Drawing on two years of longitudinal fieldwork across the city’s border geographies (Mignolo 2000)\, I examine complex entangleme nts of collective life at the conjuncture of racial-colonial and spatial f ormations\, internal displacement\, neoliberal governance\, and the urbani zation of ethnicity. Inspired by Katherine McKittrick’s (2011) proposal to re-imagine “how we are intimately tied to broader conceptions of huma n and planetary life [that] demonstrate our common and difficult histories of encounter”\, I resort to a storytelling format fuelled by short- and long-term ethnographic encounters with Afro-Colombian youth groups\, acti vists\, informal street vendors\, graffiti artists\, social organisations\ , barbers\, cooks\, housemaids\, and other dwellers who inhabit\, for the greatest majority\, Bogotá’s epistemic\, spatial\, and socio-economic b orders. In doing so\, I would like to show how the operationalisation of A fro-Colombian spatial praxis from the interstices of the white-mestizo cit y suggests the emergence of new forms of relational urbanism that foreshad ow pluriversal (Escobar 2008\, 2018) futures for the Latin American city\, overcoming its mestizo normativity.\\r\\nThis will be held on Monday Dece mber 7\, 18:00.\\r\\nPlease note that this will be a virtual lecture via Z oom. Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren. larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current De bates course need not register) X-ALT-DESC:While in Latin America the borders that mark the urban space have long been racial apparatuses of control\, inequality\, and necropower \, they have also been devices of tactical operability that recall decolon ial politics of making place\, such as that of the Maroons’ palenques. I n locating these considerations within the “urban”\, the lecture explo res the politics of emplacement operated by Afro-Colombian dwellers in con temporary Bogotá. Drawing on two years of longitudinal fieldwork across t he city’s border geographies (Mignolo 2000)\, I examine complex entangle ments of collective life at the conjuncture of racial-colonial and spatial formations\, internal displacement\, neoliberal governance\, and the urba nization of ethnicity. Inspired by Katherine McKittrick’s (2011) proposa l to re-imagine “how we are intimately tied to broader conceptions of hu man and planetary life [that] demonstrate our common and difficult histori es of encounter”\, I resort to a storytelling format fuelled by short- a nd long-term ethnographic encounters with Afro-Colombian youth groups\, ac tivists\, informal street vendors\, graffiti artists\, social organisation s\, barbers\, cooks\, housemaids\, and other dwellers who inhabit\, for th e greatest majority\, Bogotá’s epistemic\, spatial\, and socio-economic borders. In doing so\, I would like to show how the operationalisation of Afro-Colombian spatial praxis from the interstices of the white-mestizo c ity suggests the emergence of new forms of relational urbanism that foresh adow pluriversal (Escobar 2008\, 2018) futures for the Latin American city \, overcoming its mestizo normativity.
\n
This will be held on
Monday December 7\, 18:00.
Please note that this will be a v
irtual lecture via Zoom. Please register for the event/Zoom link by sendin
g an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical U
rbanisms: Current Debates course need not register)
Biopolitics in contemporary Chinese cities are often discusse d with regards to either the increasing surveillance of residents or the s tate’s control of healthy bodies during the current COVID-19 pandemic. T hinking biopolitics from another angle\, this lecture addresses the ways i n which buildings and urban energy infrastructure intervene in citizen-sta te relationships. In particular\, I will focus on the thermal implications of the Huai River Heating Policy from the 1950s which divided China into a heated north\, where district or central heating infrastructure is insta lled in urban buildings\; and a non-heated south where the thermal control of indoor spaces in winter is left to residents’ own responsibility. Ba sed on ethnographic fieldwork\, semi-structured interviews and building an alysis\, this lecture explores architecture and biopolitics in two cities: Ürümqi\, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China and Chongqing in the southwest of the country. The provision of warm bodies through power stations\, subsidized heating funds\, and district h eating as part of urban housing infrastructures contributes to the territo rial connection of northern borderlands to the state. In the south\, the l ack of such infrastructure leads to more neoliberal solutions and resident s’ active use of objects and practices for staying warm depending on the ir economic means\, age\, native place\, and cultural expectations of comf ort. Relying on Dominic Boyer\, I will outline how “biopower”\, the ma nagement of life and population through direct impact on the body\, and “energopower”\, the provision of electricity or other forms of energy infrastructure creates differing socio-technical responses in this vast co untry. Heating infrastructure beyond being a material installation for the provision of thermal comfort molds encounters between citizens and the st ate.
\nThis will be held on Monday November 23\, 18:00.
\nPlea se note that this will be a virtual lecture via Zoom. Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Studen ts enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates course need not reg ister)
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news108@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201103T092200 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201109T180000 SUMMARY:"Proximity and Distance": Lecture by Katyayani Dalmia DESCRIPTION:This research analyzes sociality and relating across community lines in Lucknow\, a burgeoning city in North India. I explore how differe nces of caste and religion are navigated in four kinds of urban sites: the home\, a beautician training academy\, an annual local festival\, and the old city. As I attempt to show\, while each of these spaces brings people across communities into proximity\, that proximity is not identical. How is affinity and difference sensed and dealt with in collective festive eat ing\, in body-related work in the beauty training school\, and between nei ghbours in the close lanes of old Lucknow? What kind of intercommunity int eraction takes place within homes? Further\, what is the place of skin col our and body in both marking\, and overcoming\, identities of caste\, reli gion and class? My analysis takes into account\, finally\, the ideas of et iquette specifically associated with being Lucknavi\, and how these shaped residents’ manner of coexisting with others.\\r\\nThis will be held on Monday November 9\, 18:00.\\r\\nPlease note that this will be a virtual le cture via Zoom. Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an emai l to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates course need not register) X-ALT-DESC:This research analyzes sociality and relating across communit y lines in Lucknow\, a burgeoning city in North India. I explore how diffe rences of caste and religion are navigated in four kinds of urban sites: t he home\, a beautician training academy\, an annual local festival\, and t he old city. As I attempt to show\, while each of these spaces brings peop le across communities into proximity\, that proximity is not identical. Ho w is affinity and difference sensed and dealt with in collective festive e ating\, in body-related work in the beauty training school\, and between n eighbours in the close lanes of old Lucknow? What kind of intercommunity i nteraction takes place within homes? Further\, what is the place of skin c olour and body in both marking\, and overcoming\, identities of caste\, re ligion and class? My analysis takes into account\, finally\, the ideas of etiquette specifically associated with being Lucknavi\, and how these shap ed residents’ manner of coexisting with others.
\nThis will be hel d on Monday November 9\, 18:00.
\nPlease note that this will be a vi rtual lecture via Zoom. Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Ur banisms: Current Debates course need not register)
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news106@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201020T124704 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201026T180000 SUMMARY:"DWELLING IN LIMINALITIES: THE OTHERWISE CARE OF BUCHAREST UNDERGRO UND" | Lecture by Michele Lancione DESCRIPTION:The lecture explores the politics of life underground in Buchar est\, Romania\, and its capacity to invent a home within an infrastructure \, and overall socio-technical conditions\, which for the many are a matte r of uninhabitability (Amin\, 2014\; Simone\, 2016). The lecture focuses o n a tunnel passing under Bucharest’s central train station\, where a com munity of drug users and homeless people established its home for years. R elying on extensive ethnographic observations\, visual work\, and intervie ws undertaken within the premises of one of Bucharest’s underground cana ls\, the paper traces and illustrates the socio-material entanglements cha racterizing life underground. This is an assemblage of bodies\, veins\, sy ringes\, substances\, and various relationships of power and affect\, whic h speaks of drug addiction and extreme marginalization but also of a sense of belonging\, reciprocal trustiness\, and care (Lancione\, 2019a). The g oal of this work is to trace the emergence of the infrastructure of ‘hom e’ in the abnormal conditions of life in the tunnels of Gara de Nord and to highlight what that meant in terms of urban politics in Bucharest (Che lcea and Druţǎ\, 2016) and beyond (Butler\, 2011). The paper contributes to debates around homing practices at the margins of the urban (Veness\, 1993\; Vasudevan\, 2015\; Lancione\, 2019b)\, and it promotes a deeper und erstanding of the peculiar politics emerging from the assemblage of life u nderground in Bucharest.\\r\\nThis will be held on Monday October 26\, 18: 00.\\r\\nPlease note that this will be a virtual lecture via Zoom.\\r\\nPl ease register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren.larsen@ unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates c ourse need not register) X-ALT-DESC:The lecture explores the politics of life underground in Buch arest\, Romania\, and its capacity to invent a home within an infrastructu re\, and overall socio-technical conditions\, which for the many are a mat ter of uninhabitability (Amin\, 2014\; Simone\, 2016). The lecture focuses on a tunnel passing under Bucharest’s central train station\, where a c ommunity of drug users and homeless people established its home for years. Relying on extensive ethnographic observations\, visual work\, and interv iews undertaken within the premises of one of Bucharest’s underground ca nals\, the paper traces and illustrates the socio-material entanglements c haracterizing life underground. This is an assemblage of bodies\, veins\, syringes\, substances\, and various relationships of power and affect\, wh ich speaks of drug addiction and extreme marginalization but also of a sen se of belonging\, reciprocal trustiness\, and care (Lancione\, 2019a). The goal of this work is to trace the emergence of the infrastructure of ‘h ome’ in the abnormal conditions of life in the tunnels of Gara de Nord a nd to highlight what that meant in terms of urban politics in Bucharest (C helcea and Druţǎ\, 2016) and beyond (Butler\, 2011). The paper contribut es to debates around homing practices at the margins of the urban (Veness\ , 1993\; Vasudevan\, 2015\; Lancione\, 2019b)\, and it promotes a deeper u nderstanding of the peculiar politics emerging from the assemblage of life underground in Bucharest.
\nThis will be held on Monday October 26\ , 18:00.
\nPlease note that this will be a virtual lecture via Zoom.
\nPlease register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to ma ren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Curren t Debates course need not register)
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news105@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201006T094014 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201012T180000 SUMMARY:"MO-FAYA: SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SURVIVALS IN NAIROBI'S OUTLAW SETTLEMENT " | Lecture by Wangui Kimari DESCRIPTION:Contemporary urban planning practices in Nairobi are often fram ed as movements towards “world-class city” status localized within a s ituated “Africa rising” moment. My current project wants to move beyon d the hegemony of these official narratives to think about Nairobi from it s “outlaw” settlements. To do this it dwells in the social experiences of urban spatial management in Mathare\, a poor ‘slum’in the east of Nairobi\, to draw attention to what I argue is the imperial assemblage tha t produces this city\; one informed by political\, ecological\, social and economic ideas and practices that have their grounding in empire. In so d oing\, it connects themes often examined in silos – for example\, slum f ires\, evictions\, ‘illegal’ water tapping\, cholera\, extrajudicial k illings\, youth urban vernaculars\, subject formation and floods – and d raws attention to how an increasingly militarized urban planning contribut es to what I term ecologies of exclusion\, allowing that the police become de facto urban planners and managers. Notwithstanding the historical negl ect and force of urban governance in the poor space that I highlight\, ult imately\, I would like to make evident how those framed as the city’s ou tlaws engage with and emerge from the many violent articulations of an imp erial urban planning through dynamic socio-ecological survivals. And from within these poor urban struggles\, they are able to articulate more groun ded narrations of the history and possible futures of Nairobi\\r\\nThis wi ll be held on Monday October 12\, 18:00.\\r\\nPlease note that this will b e a virtual lecture via Zoom.Please register for the event/Zoom link by se nding an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critic al Urbanisms: Current Debates course need not register) X-ALT-DESC:Contemporary urban planning practices in Nairobi are often fr amed as movements towards “world-class city” status localized within a situated “Africa rising” moment. My current project wants to move bey ond the hegemony of these official narratives to think about Nairobi from its “outlaw” settlements. To do this it dwells in the social experienc es of urban spatial management in Mathare\, a poor ‘slum’in the east o f Nairobi\, to draw attention to what I argue is the imperial assemblage t hat produces this city\; one informed by political\, ecological\, social a nd economic ideas and practices that have their grounding in empire. In so doing\, it connects themes often examined in silos – for example\, slum fires\, evictions\, ‘illegal’ water tapping\, cholera\, extrajudicial killings\, youth urban vernaculars\, subject formation and floods – and draws attention to how an increasingly militarized urban planning contrib utes to what I term ecologies of exclusion\, allowing that the police beco me de facto urban planners and managers. Notwithstanding the historical ne glect and force of urban governance in the poor space that I highlight\, u ltimately\, I would like to make evident how those framed as the city’s outlaws engage with and emerge from the many violent articulations of an i mperial urban planning through dynamic socio-ecological survivals. And fro m within these poor urban struggles\, they are able to articulate more gro unded narrations of the history and possible futures of Nairobi
\nTh is will be held on Monday October 12\, 18:00.
\nPlease note that thi s will be a virtual lecture via Zoom.Please register for the event/Zoom li nk by sending an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates course need not register)
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201012T200000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news102@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20210310T085312 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200928T180000 SUMMARY:Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates (Lecture Series) DESCRIPTION:This course exposes students to schools of thought and concrete interventions that redefine understandings of urban lifeworlds in the twe nty-first century. The lecture series will explore the dynamics that shape cities and how cities in turn impact the course of locally situated and g lobal phenomena. Guest lecturers hail from a range of disciplines and fiel ds in the social sciences including urban and regional planning\, geograph y\, political theory\, art and activism\, and architectural research. The lectures will take place on various dates between 28 Sep and 7 Dec 2020. X-ALT-DESC:This course exposes students to schools of thought and concrete interventions that redefine understandings of urban lifeworlds in the twen ty-first century. The lecture series will explore the dynamics that shape cities and how cities in turn impact the course of locally situated and gl obal phenomena. Guest lecturers hail from a range of disciplines and field s in the social sciences including urban and regional planning\, geography \, political theory\, art and activism\, and architectural research. The l ectures will take place on various dates between 28 Sep and 7 Dec 2020. END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news103@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200924T182245 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200928T180000 SUMMARY:"PERMANENT TEMPORARINESS": Lecture by Sandi Hilal DESCRIPTION:Located between the domestic and the public sphere\, Al-Madhafa h\, in Arabic\, is the living room dedicated to hospitality. It has the po tential to subvert the role of guest and host and give a different socio-p olitical meaning to the act of hospitality. It seeks to mobilize the condi tion of permanent temporariness as an architectural and political concept able to challenge the binaries of inclusion and exclusion\, public and pri vate\, guest and host. It activates the rights of temporary people to host and not to be eternally a guest\, the right to claim life in the new dest ination but without feeling obliged to revoke the desire to belong to the life back home.\\r\\nThis will be held on Monday September 28\, 18:00.\\r\ \nPlease note that this will be a virtual lecture via Zoom.Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren.larsen@unibas.ch. (S tudents enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates course need no t register) X-ALT-DESC:Located between the domestic and the public sphere\, Al-Madha fah\, in Arabic\, is the living room dedicated to hospitality. It has the potential to subvert the role of guest and host and give a different socio -political meaning to the act of hospitality. It seeks to mobilize the con dition of permanent temporariness as an architectural and political concep t able to challenge the binaries of inclusion and exclusion\, public and p rivate\, guest and host. It activates the rights of temporary people to ho st and not to be eternally a guest\, the right to claim life in the new de stination but without feeling obliged to revoke the desire to belong to th e life back home.
\nThis will be held on Monday September 28\, 18:00 .
\nPlease note that this will be a virtual lecture via Zoom.Please register for the event/Zoom link by sending an email to maren.larsen@uniba s.ch. (Students enrolled in the Critical Urbanisms: Current Debates cou rse need not register)
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news93@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200407T150304 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200924T000000 SUMMARY:Sustainable Urbanism Across Borders\, Eurodistrict International Co nference DESCRIPTION:Through a series of expert conversations and participatory work shops\, the conference engages with current research\, exemplary projects \, and conceptual visions to explore new pathways for promoting a more s ustainable Basel metropolitan region across national borders. Drawing fro m multiple disciplines and approaches\, the conference explores how the r egion’s specific cross-border\, intercultural\, and trans-political geo graphies can help us to rethink practices and visions of sustainable urba n development. The conference is accompanied by a poster exhibition of cu rrent projects in and for the Basel region.\\r\\nThe conference brings tog ether international experts\, local political agents\, planners and desig ners\, cross-border groups\, civil society organizations\, and an engaged public from the region to discuss future challenges and opportunities. I t explores environmental and social notions of sustainability that serve the region’s communities across borders\, hoping to establish new chann els of exchange between decision-makers\, inhabitants\, and other actors. We invite participants who are are interested in learning how trans-bord er urban regions can develop strategies for sharing resources\, services\ , modes of governance\, and concepts of planning\, and how these may be a pplied and transformed in the Basel metropolitan region.\\r\\nPROGRAM:\\r \\nThursday 24 September \\r\\nKeynote: Caroline Creamer\\r\\nFriday 25 S eptember\\r\\nWhose Borders? Accounting for the Different Experiences of C limate Change How can urban regions\, shaped by a multiplicity of borders and forms of disparity\, tackle climate change and planetary survival?\\r\ \n(with Caroline Creamer\, Bernhard Reitel\, and Urban Studies) Whose Reso urces? Developing Commons\, Building Collectives How can transborder urba n regions manage resources that serve communities across borders and deve lop new practices of commoning and of sharing resources?\\r\\n(with Barba ra Koch\, Samuel Mössner\, Urban Studies\, and Lukas Ott)\\r\\nWhose Urba nism? Rethinking Design and Governance How can transborder urban regions d evelop new strategies for urban change that include bottom-up processes o f decision-making and design?\\r\\n(with Lina Liakou\, Sascha Roesler and Urban Studies) X-ALT-DESC:Through a series of expert conversations and participatory wo rkshops\, the conference engages with current research\, exemplary projec ts\, and conceptual visions to explore new pathways for promoting a more sustainable Basel metropolitan region across national borders. Drawing f rom multiple disciplines and approaches\, the conference explores how the region’s specific cross-border\, intercultural\, and trans-political g eographies can help us to rethink practices and visions of sustainable ur ban development. The conference is accompanied by a poster exhibition of current projects in and for the Basel region.
\nThe conference bring s together international experts\, local political agents\, planners and designers\, cross-border groups\, civil society organizations\, and an en gaged public from the region to discuss future challenges and opportuniti es. It explores environmental and social notions of sustainability that s erve the region’s communities across borders\, hoping to establish new channels of exchange between decision-makers\, inhabitants\, and other ac tors. We invite participants who are are interested in learning how trans -border urban regions can develop strategies for sharing resources\, serv ices\, modes of governance\, and concepts of planning\, and how these may be applied and transformed in the Basel metropolitan region.
\nPRO GRAM:
\nThursday 24 September
\nKeynote: Caroline Creamer
\nFriday 25 September
\nWhose Borders? Accounting for the Differ ent Experiences of Climate Change How can urban regions\, shaped by a mult iplicity of borders and forms of disparity\, tackle climate change and pla netary survival?
\n(with Caroline Creamer\, Bernhard Reitel\, and Ur ban Studies) Whose Resources? Developing Commons\, Building Collectives H ow can transborder urban regions manage resources that serve communities across borders and develop new practices of commoning and of sharing reso urces?
\n(with Barbara Koch\, Samuel Mössner\, Urban Studies\, and Lukas Ott)
\nWhose Urbanism? Rethinking Design and Governance How ca n transborder urban regions develop new strategies for urban change that include bottom-up processes of decision-making and design?
\n(with L ina Liakou\, Sascha Roesler and Urban Studies)
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200925T150100 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news100@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200916T215428 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200918T120000 SUMMARY:Race and Modern Architecture: Book Launch DESCRIPTION:"Although race—a concept of human difference that establishes hierarchies of power and domination—has played a critical role in the d evelopment of modern architectural discourse and practice since the Enligh tenment\, its influence on the discipline remains largely underexplored. R ace and Modern Architecture offers a welcome and long-awaited intervention for the field by shining a spotlight on constructions of race and their i mpact on architecture and theory in Europe and North America and across va rious global contexts since the eighteenth century. Challenging us to writ e race back into architectural history\, contributors confront how racial thinking has intimately shaped some of the key concepts of modern architec ture and culture over time\, including freedom\, revolution\, character\, national and indigenous style\, progress\, hybridity\, climate\, represent ation\, and radicalism. By analyzing how architecture has intersected with histories of slavery\, colonialism\, and inequality—from eighteenth-cen tury neoclassical governmental buildings to present-day housing projects f or immigrants—Race and Modern Architecture challenges\, complicates\, an d revises the standard association of modern architecture with a universal project of emancipation and progress."\\r\\nTo read more and register\, p lease visit the specified link: https://portal.cca.edu/events-calendar/ra ce-and-modern-architecture-book-launch/?fbclid=IwAR0gzcjJe4ahGNjlz-Qo4A8RD iDVS5w8aI9CFY2Mw49tUekZlKrGB9fPnK4 [https://portal.cca.edu/events-calendar /race-and-modern-architecture-book-launch/?fbclid=IwAR0gzcjJe4ahGNjlz-Qo4A 8RDiDVS5w8aI9CFY2Mw49tUekZlKrGB9fPnK4]\\r\\nImage Credits: California Coll ege of the Arts\, 2020 X-ALT-DESC:"\;Although race—a concept of human difference that est ablishes hierarchies of power and domination—has played a critical role in the development of modern architectural discourse and practice since th e Enlightenment\, its influence on the discipline remains largely underexp lored. Race and Modern Architecture offers a welcome and long-awaited inte rvention for the field by shining a spotlight on constructions of race and their impact on architecture and theory in Europe and North America and a cross various global contexts since the eighteenth century. Challenging us to write race back into architectural history\, contributors confront how racial thinking has intimately shaped some of the key concepts of modern architecture and culture over time\, including freedom\, revolution\, char acter\, national and indigenous style\, progress\, hybridity\, climate\, r epresentation\, and radicalism. By analyzing how architecture has intersec ted with histories of slavery\, colonialism\, and inequality—from eighte enth-century neoclassical governmental buildings to present-day housing pr ojects for immigrants—Race and Modern Architecture challenges\, complica tes\, and revises the standard association of modern architecture with a u niversal project of emancipation and progress."\;
\nTo read more and register\, please visit the specified link: \;https:/ /portal.cca.edu/events-calendar/race-and-modern-architecture-book-launch/? fbclid=IwAR0gzcjJe4ahGNjlz-Qo4A8RDiDVS5w8aI9CFY2Mw49tUekZlKrGB9fPnK4\n
Image Credits: California College of the Arts\, 2020
\n\n DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200918T150000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news90@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20201012T112444 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200316 SUMMARY:NEW DATES: What is Critical Urbanisms? Exhibition at Kollegienhaus DESCRIPTION:**UPDATE 12 OCT 2020: It's finally up for viewing! The exhibiti on is open to all from 12 Oct - 31 October 2020. Check it out at the Kolle gienhaus\, Petersplatz 1\, Basel. \\r\\nIn our rapidly changing and contes ted global environment\, cities are becoming increasingly important: they house a majority of the world’s inhabitants and act as catalysts of soci al\, political\, economic\, cultural\, and ecological change. Established in 2016\, Urban Studies at the University of Basel offers a new platform f or understanding these planetary transformations.\\r\\nWe are pleased to p resent our first exhibition of ongoing work by students in our Master in C ritical Urbanisms program as well as more advanced researchers. Our work s tarts from the premise that the world’s urban and environmental challeng es call for new ways of doing as well as new ways of thinking. Imagining a lternative urban futures means rethinking the present—its historical mak ing\, its political unfolding\, and the ways in which it is made sensible. Our work expands the study of the urban by examining urban struggles and futures in relation to the legacies of empire and to alternative practices of world-making and knowledge production. \\r\\nThe Master in Critical Urbanisms is an English-taught\, four-semester program that qualifies stud ents in interdisciplinary urban research combining methods from the humani ties and social sciences with creative practice and visual representation. Drawing from the disciplines of architecture\, geography\, history\, soci ology\, political science\, and anthropology\, the curriculum provides stu dents with practical and theoretical competencies to address the complex c hallenges of urbanization in the twenty-first century. X-ALT-DESC:**UPDATE 12 OCT 2020: It's finally up for viewing! The exhibi tion is open to all from 12 Oct - 31 October 2020. Check it out at the Kol legienhaus\, Petersplatz 1\, Basel.
\nIn our rapidly changing and c ontested global environment\, cities are becoming increasingly important: they house a majority of the world’s inhabitants and act as catalysts of social\, political\, economic\, cultural\, and ecological change. Establi shed in 2016\, Urban Studies at the University of Basel offers a new platf orm for understanding these planetary transformations.
\nWe are plea sed to present our first exhibition of ongoing work by students in our Mas ter in Critical Urbanisms program as well as more advanced researchers. Ou r work starts from the premise that the world’s urban and environmental challenges call for new ways of doing as well as new ways of thinking. Ima gining alternative urban futures means rethinking the present—its histor ical making\, its political unfolding\, and the ways in which it is made s ensible. Our work expands the study of the urban by examining urban strugg les and futures in relation to the legacies of empire and to alternative p ractices of world-making and knowledge production. \;
\nThe Mas ter in Critical Urbanisms is an English-taught\, four-semester program tha t qualifies students in interdisciplinary urban research combining methods from the humanities and social sciences with creative practice and visual representation. Drawing from the disciplines of architecture\, geography\ , history\, sociology\, political science\, and anthropology\, the curricu lum provides students with practical and theoretical competencies to addre ss the complex challenges of urbanization in the twenty-first century.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news89@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200227T113520 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200311T181500 SUMMARY:Lecture Series European Global Studies: «Focus Belt and Road Initi ative» DESCRIPTION:Die Ringvorlesung European Global Studies: Focus Belt and Road Initiative bietet einen Überblick über unterschiedliche Aspekte des al s «Belt and Road Initiative» bekannten chinesischen Infrastrukturprojek ts. Die Vorträge werden von Expertinnen und Experten aus unterschiedlich en Bereichen gehalten\, darunter Wissenschaftlerinnen\, sowie Politik- un d Wirtschaftsberater.\\r\\nDr. Remo Reginold [https://www.globalaffairs.c h/global-affairs/personen/] vom Swiss Institute for Global Affairs in Ber n ist Politikberater und Co-Geschäftsführer der Firma Politikwissenscha ftliche Beratung Schweiz GmbH. Zudem ist Remo Reginold ständiger Gastdoz ent im Fachbereich Urban Studies der Universität Basel. X-ALT-DESC:Die Ringvorlesung European Global Studies: Focus Belt and Roa d Initiative bietet einen Überblick über unterschiedliche Aspekte des als «Belt and Road Initiative» bekannten chinesischen Infrastrukturproj ekts. Die Vorträge werden von Expertinnen und Experten aus unterschiedli chen Bereichen gehalten\, darunter Wissenschaftlerinnen\, sowie Politik- und Wirtschaftsberater.
\nDr. Remo Reginold vom Sw iss Institute for Global Affairs in Bern ist Politikberater und Co-Gesch äftsführer der Firma Politikwissenschaftliche Beratung Schweiz GmbH. Zu dem ist Remo Reginold ständiger Gastdozent im Fachbereich Urban Studies d er Universität Basel.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200311T194500 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news85@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200123T163722 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200130T123000 SUMMARY:Postcolonial Logistics: Eni's African Empire DESCRIPTION:African postcolonial modernism has been mainly celebrated as th e expression of independent nation-building\, modernity\, development\, an d pan-Africanism. Similar accounts reaffirm modernist claims of neutrality and deny the use of modernism as an arm of neo-colonial imperialism. This paper fills this gap by focusing on the role of the Italian national hydr ocarbon agency ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) and its commercial branch AGIP (Agenzia Italian Petroli) as agents in the production of space. In pa rticular\, the paper will focus on early independent Tanzania where Agip b uilt and managed a Motel and over 50 gas stations. Depicted by ENI as the “missing infrastructures” able to spur development and real economic i ndependence\, these artifacts were in fact fundamental tools for ENI’s n eo-colonial project. While spreading Agip’s corporate identity\, they op erated as outposts for the conquest of new territories\, repeatedly and in sistently suggesting an oil-based modernity and a consumerist way of life. Nonetheless\, a closer and more engaged observation reveals more nuanced and ambivalent dynamics. X-ALT-DESC:African postcolonial modernism has been mainly celebrated as the expression of independent nation-building\, modernity\, development\, and pan-Africanism. Similar accounts reaffirm modernist claims of neutrali ty and deny the use of modernism as an arm of neo-colonial imperialism. Th is paper fills this gap by focusing on the role of the Italian national hy drocarbon agency ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) and its commercial branc h AGIP (Agenzia Italian Petroli) as agents in the production of space. In particular\, the paper will focus on early independent Tanzania where Agip built and managed a Motel and over 50 gas stations. Depicted by ENI as th e “missing infrastructures” able to spur development and real economic independence\, these artifacts were in fact fundamental tools for ENI’s neo-colonial project. While spreading Agip’s corporate identity\, they operated as outposts for the conquest of new territories\, repeatedly and insistently suggesting an oil-based modernity and a consumerist way of lif e. Nonetheless\, a closer and more engaged observation reveals more nuance d and ambivalent dynamics. \;
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20200130T140000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news84@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191210T152833 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191219T093000 SUMMARY:What is Critical Urbanisms? DESCRIPTION:Join us and get a sense of MA in Critical Urbanisms thesis work and explore together with the invited discussants the potentials of int erdisciplinary research in urban studies. Our discussion will highlight e merging approaches to understanding the urban beyond global divisions bet ween North and South. We will explore how to reframe global urban challen ges\, how to account for conflicting ways of knowing and experiencing the city\, and how legacies of the past shape the politics of the urban pres ent.\\r\\nConfirmed discussants: Lorena Rizzo\, Julia Büchele\, Laurent G oetschel\, Andrea Bieler X-ALT-DESC:Join us and get a sense of MA in Critical Urbanisms thesis wo rk and explore together with the invited discussants the potentials of i nterdisciplinary research in urban studies. Our discussion will highlight emerging approaches to understanding the urban beyond global divisions b etween North and South. We will explore how to reframe global urban chall enges\, how to account for conflicting ways of knowing and experiencing t he city\, and how legacies of the past shape the politics of the urban pr esent.
\nConfirmed discussants: Lorena Rizzo\, Julia Büchele\, Laur ent Goetschel\, Andrea Bieler
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191219T140000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news78@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191105T103257 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191203T120000 SUMMARY:Noon-Talks: Hybrid spaces in the state developmentalist - increment alist nexus. The case of Hawassa\, Ethiopia DESCRIPTION:“Noon-Talks” is an opportunity for PhD candidates and Post- docs of the Department of Social Sciences to get to know each other\, pre sent their ongoing work\, receive feed-back and engage in discussions wit h scholars of the various disciplines of our department. Our goal is to foster exchange between scholars and get to know each other’s work. We wish to encourage presenters to address methodological challenges\, theor etical issues and conceptual questions they are currently working on. Eac h presentation will be followed by prepared comments from a discussant an d an open Q&A session. \\r\\nWe cordially invite all members\, faculty and students of the department to join us. \\r\\nProgram: 20 minutes presenta tion\, 10 minutes comments by a discussant\, 20-30 minutes open Q&A/discus sion \\r\\nOrganisation and Contact: Julia Büchele\, Coordinator G3S\; C édric Duchêne-Lacroix\, Sociology\; Metka Hercog\, Cultural Anthropolog y and European Ethnology\; Katrin Sontag\, Cultural Anthropology and Euro pean Ethnology X-ALT-DESC:“Noon-Talks” is an opportunity for PhD candidates and Po st-docs of the Department of Social Sciences to get to know each other\, present their ongoing work\, receive feed-back and engage in discussions with scholars of the various disciplines of our department. Our goal is t o foster exchange between scholars and get to know each other’s work. W e wish to encourage presenters to address methodological challenges\, th eoretical issues and conceptual questions they are currently working on. Each presentation will be followed by prepared comments from a discussant and an open Q&\;A session.
\nWe cordially invite all members\, faculty and students of the department to join us.
\nProgram: 20 mi nutes presentation\, 10 minutes comments by a discussant\, 20-30 minutes o pen Q&\;A/discussion
\nOrganisation and Contact: Julia Büchele\ , Coordinator G3S\; Cédric Duchêne-Lacroix\, Sociology\; Metka Hercog\, Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology\; Katrin Sontag\, Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news82@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191120T155605 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20191121 SUMMARY:Sicherheitspolitik anders denken DESCRIPTION:Prof. Kenny Cupers is giving a talk at the conference "Sicherhe itspolitik anders denken" (Rethinking Security Politics) at the University Zurich. X-ALT-DESC:Prof. Kenny Cupers is giving a talk at the conference "\; Sicherheitspolitik anders denken"\; (Rethinking Security Politics) at the University Zurich. \;
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20191121 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news81@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191114T145901 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191119T093000 SUMMARY:What is Critical Urbanisms? Thesis Work Presentations and Roundtabl e Discussion DESCRIPTION:Our discussion will highlight emerging approaches to understand ing the urban beyond global divisions between North and South. We will exp lore how to reframe global urban challenges\, how to account for conflicti ng ways of knowing and experiencing the city\, and how legacies of the pas t shape the politics of the urban present. Confirmed discussants: Lorena Rizzo\, Julia Büchele\, Laurent Goetschel\, Andrea Bieler X-ALT-DESC:Our discussion will highlight emerging approaches to understa
nding the urban beyond global divisions between North and South. We will e
xplore how to reframe global urban challenges\, how to account for conflic
ting ways of knowing and experiencing the city\, and how legacies of the p
ast shape the politics of the urban present.
\;
Confirmed d
iscussants: Lorena Rizzo\, Julia Büchele\, Laurent Goetschel\, Andrea Bie
ler
This exhibition conveys the contrast within Lesvos Island in Greece and concentrates on Moria-camp as an exception in the middle of the island. Currently\, 16000 refugees live in the camp\, but it was only set up for 2500. And winter is approaching. \;
\nEach place should be compared with itself and its context otherwise that would be an irrelev ant comparison. In the first layer of this exhibition different places on Lesvos island will be shown. By contrast\, in the second layer\, the overa ll concept and condition of life in Moria-camp will be exposed. In the thi rd layer\, everyday life in Moria-camp will be portrayed
\nThe exhib ition will take place for a fundraising idea and all of the financial aid will be transferred to Moria-camp. \;
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news69@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191107T143535 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191111T180000 SUMMARY:Urbanism in Conflict: Cities\, Conflict and Contestation DESCRIPTION:We propose that conflict be considered as a mode of inhabiting cities—indeed\, as a mode of citizenship—but also as potentially a mod e of eroding citizenship and urban fabric through both violent and non-vio lent means. Guest lecturers from a range of disciplines in the social scie nces will address how issues ranging from participatory democracy and envi ronmental justice to ethnic violence and migration reshape cities. The ros ter of guest lecturers includes renowned experts in the following areas of research: critical geography and mapping\, urban politics\, urbanism from the South\, heritage studies\, architectural research and activism.\\r\\n 9 September (Ananya Roy) \\r\\n30 September (Laura Kurgan)\\r\\n3 October (Léopold Lambert)\\r\\n28 October (Nathalie Jean Baptiste) \\r\\n11 Novem ber (Khaled Malas) \\r\\n25 November (Deborah Cowen)\\r\\n10 December (Mas on White) X-ALT-DESC:We propose that conflict be considered as a mode of inhabitin g cities—indeed\, as a mode of citizenship—but also as potentially a m ode of eroding citizenship and urban fabric through both violent and non-v iolent means. Guest lecturers from a range of disciplines in the social sc iences will address how issues ranging from participatory democracy and en vironmental justice to ethnic violence and migration reshape cities. The r oster of guest lecturers includes renowned experts in the following areas of research: critical geography and mapping\, urban politics\, urbanism fr om the South\, heritage studies\, architectural research and activism.
\n9 September (Ananya Roy)
\n30 September (Laura Kurgan)
\n3 October (Léopold Lambert)
\n28 October (Nathalie Jean Baptiste)
\n11 November (Khaled Malas)
\n25 November (Deborah Cowen)\n
10 December (Mason White)
\n\n END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news70@urbanstudies.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20190903T143550 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20191004T090000 SUMMARY:Mediterranean Fascism(s) Workshop DESCRIPTION:As a particular form of political and social logic which circul ates within and contours contemporary debates\, policies\, and state proje cts\, the workshop will both diagram Mediterranean Fascism(s)\, but will a lso aim to locate the resistant practices that suggest the possibility of something otherwise being put into motion. Specifically\, the workshop wil l explore what is the place of art\, architecture and material heritage in shaping and inspiring practices of resistance and processes of de-fascist ization. For more information: emilio.distretti@unibas.ch Participants: He ba Amin\, Ida Danewid\, Emilio Distretti\, Beth Hughes\, Platon Issaias\, Emily Jacir\, Léopold Lambert\, Ian Alan Paul & Alessandro Petti X-ALT-DESC:As a particular form of political and social logic which circula tes within and contours contemporary debates\, policies\, and state projec ts\, the workshop will both diagram Mediterranean Fascism(s)\, but will al so aim to locate the resistant practices that suggest the possibility of s omething otherwise being put into motion. Specifically\, the workshop will explore what is the place of art\, architecture and material heritage in shaping and inspiring practices of resistance and processes of de-fascisti zation. For more information: emilio.distretti@unibas.ch