When: Thursday, May 14, 2020, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PMWhere: Webinar, BB Collaborate
A joint IHSS and The City Centre online seminar with Anna-Louise Milne (ULIP), AbdouMaliq T Simone (The University of Sheffield) and Alan Latham (UCL)
Cities exist to bring people together; one of their greatest attributes is the economies of scale they bring about through the proximity of persons with social infrastructure. In the time of COVID-19 the very things that serve as a city’s strength have becomes its weakness, and a source of urban citizens’ vulnerability.
In this online seminar, Anna-Louise Milne, AbdouMaliq Simone, and Alan Latham will discuss their respective take on how COVID-19 is challenging urban life. How are norms around publicness, community, caring and neighbourliness being transformed, either for better or worse? How does the urban fabric, with its multiple spaces and forms of sociality, provide resources for thinking about togetherness and separation in the context of a global pandemic? How might urban and municipal planners best respond to the current crisis in ways that enhance and protect the social life of the city? What are the challenges confronting different cities around the world?
Chair by Simon Reid-Henry, this online seminar will consider these issues in the format of a roundtable discussion with opening contributions from:
Anna-Louise Milne (History, ULIP)Anna-Louise Milne specialisms includes twentieth-century literature, theory and cultural history, translation studies and trauma and migration studies.
AbdouMaliq T Simone (Urban Studies, The University of Sheffield)AbdouMaliq Simone is an urbanist with an abiding interest in the spatial and social compositions of urban regions.Alan Latham (Geography, UCL)Alan Latham is an urban geographer whose research focuses on three key areas Sociality and urban life, globalization and the cultural economy of cities and corporeal mobility.