CSC: "Just Urban Futures"

CSC: "Just Urban Futures"

February 28, 2019, 4:30 p.m. Johnson Center,
Assembly Room A

We would like to invite you this week's colloquium, titled "Just Urban Futures" with Ashley Dawson, who is a professsor of English at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Please come and join us for this engaging talk.

Below is a summary of his talk.

Humanity is now a predominantly urban species, but the cities we inhabit are riven by deepening economic and social stratification. Megacities like New York, Miami, Mumbai, and Jakarta are also on the frontlines of gathering climate chaos, vulnerable to extreme temperatures, rising tides, and increasingly violent storms. What are the underlying dynamics of the capitalist world system that are driving unsustainable urbanization? How are governments, civil society organizations, and social movements seeking to adapt to the increasingly perilous character of urban life? What prospects for radical transformation and social justice lie in the cities of the future?

Ashley Dawson is a professor of English at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His recent books include Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017) and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R Books, 2016).