Date and time
Tuesday 29th November 2012
6-8 pm (GMT)
Location
UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, Room G01, Wates House, 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB
Book launch: Urban constellations
Panel:
Johan Andersson
Iain Borden
Claire Thomson
Karen Till
Cities are an unprecedented focus of attention: over half the world now lives in them, culture and politics are significantly shaped by them, and they are also focal points for new relationships between nature, technology and the human body. This essay collection brings together a range of cutting-edge international scholarship on cities, urbanization and urban culture. The format is a series of small essays in the spirit of Benjamin, Kracauer, and other innovative forms of writing and observation. The contributions explore themes such as new forms of political mobilization, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature, and the presence of collective memory. Cultural aspects of urban change are also considered including the work of artists, filmmakers and others who have sought to critically engage with processes of urban change. The global scope of the collection includes essays on Berlin, Chicago, and London, as well as less extensively studied cities such as Chennai, Jakarta, and Lagos.
Contributors to the book include: Lara Almarcegui; Johan Andersson; Pushpa Arabindoo; Karen Bakker; Stephen Barber; Sarah Bell; Iain Borden; Neil Brenner; Ben Campkin; Mustafa Dikeç; Ger Duijzings; Michael Edwards; Matthew Gandy; David Gissen; Stephen Graham; Maren Harnack; Andrew Harris; Sandra Jasper; Roger Keil; Karolina Kendall-Bush; Köbberling & Kaltwasser; Martin Kohler; Patrick Le Galès; Lucrezia Lennert; Noam Leshem; Leandro Minuchin; Ulrike Mohr; Louis Moreno; Laura Oldfield Ford; Giles Omezi; Jane Rendell; Jennifer Robinson; Rebecca Ross; Joachim Schlör; Christian Schmid; Hyun Bang Shin; AbdouMaliq Simone; Erik Swyngedouw;Mark Tewdwr-Jones; C. Claire Thomson; Karen E. Till; Meike Wolf; and Benedikte Zitouni.
Sample pages: