SFU Urban Studies Fall Lecture Series: Who Gets to be Part of the City?
The SFU Urban Studies Program is pleased to announce its fall 2016 lecture series.
All events are FREE, but reservations are required.
Download the poster with full event details
Linked speakers are all lecturers or adjunct faculty in the Urban Studies Program.
Animals and the City
October 4 (Tuesday), 7 p.m.
Room 4800, SFU Vancouver (Segal Building), 500 Granville St.
Speaker: Alexandru Balescu (and respondents)
Why is that so many people are much more likely to accept a radical other in a form of a pet, while
rejecting or marginalizing a fellow human being only because she/he may look or act/perform slightly different? What is the parallel between the discourses on stray dogs, matters out of place, and social categories that are deemed marginal or undesirable? Why to many among us, are stray dogs not acceptable while homelessness is?
Book launch: What a City is for: Remaking the Politics of Displacement
October 21 (Friday) 7 p.m.
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU Vancouver (Woodward's), 149 W. Hastings St.
Speaker: Matt Hern (and respondents)
Displacement and dispossessions are convulsing cities across the globe, becoming the dominant urban narratives of our time. In What a City Is For, Hern uses the case of Albina— the one major Black neighbourhood in Portland - as well as similar instances in New Orleans and Vancouver, to investigate gentrification in the twenty-first century. Hern questions the notions of development, private property, and ownership, arguing that home ownership drives inequality. How can we reimagine the city as a post-ownership, post-sovereign space?
Co-sponsors: MIT Press, SFU Woodwards Community Engagement Office, SFU Institute for Humanities, SFU Urban Studies, UBC SCARP
Utopianism Panel
October 27 (Thursday) 7:00 p.m.
Room 7000, SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre), 515 W Hastings St.
Speakers: Frank Cunningham, Meg Holden and Trevor Boddy
An utopian/anti-utopian opposition persists today in virtually all domains of urban theory and practice with nuances and a variety of attempts to supersede it. On the occasion of this anniversary the Simon Fraser Urban Studies Program and the Humanities Institute are organizing a panel to initiate discussion on aspects of utopianism today with specific, but not exclusive, reference to its urban incarnations, including in the Lower mainland. Themes will depend upon those comprising the panel, but might, generically, address the questions of whether and how utopian thinking informs contemporary theories and practices and, to the extent that it does, whether this is a good thing.
Co-sponsor: Institute for Humanities
Studentification and the impacts of education-led international immigrants
November 16, 7 p.m.
Room 1410, SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre), 515 W. Hastings St.
Speakers: Qiyan Wu and respondents
In this talk Dr. Wu will discuss processes of studentification as a new feature and process of gentrification. Dr. Wu’s past work has examined Nanjing, one of China’s largest urban centres, and a process that Dr. Wu calls jiaoyufication. Dr. Wu takes the example of Nanjing and, using theories of Bordieu and Smith, among other theorists, stretches his original studies to consider cities with large numbers of Chinese immigrant populations such as Greater Vancouver and Manchester, and new processes of gentrification and displacement that are being instigated by various forms and configurations of studentification.
Re-defining the Public in Public Libraries
November 24th (Thursday) 7:00 p.m.
Room 7000, SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre), 515 W. Hastings St.
Speaker: Lisa Freeman
Lisa Freeman will discuss the changing role of public libraries in the context of urban governance. Public libraries in Canada are increasingly being compared to public spaces for multiple and diverse publics. In her work, Lisa asks how the publicness of the library is performed in the context of austerity measures and municipal governance. This research raises important questions about the role of citizen boards in governing changing public spaces in our cities. Frank Cunningham will respond to Lisa and instigate a discussion with her and the audience.
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