March 2016 - urbanstudiescircular@lists.qc.cuny.edu

[UrbanStudiesCircular] 04/04: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 30 Mar '16

30 Mar '16

Hi all, The Urban Studies Club is showing The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution this Monday!! April 4th from 6-8 pm in the Godwin Ternbach Museum! URBAN STUDIES CLUB AT QUEENS COLLEGE 65-30 Kissena Blvd. Flushing, NY 11367 Powdermaker Hall, Room 250 Telephone: 718-997-5130<tel:718-997-5130> [https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=45c55c94e6&view=fimg&th=153c830a6…]

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 04/08: Avenues of Social and Political Change: Five Years of Contention in the Middle East and North Africa
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

Avenues of Social and Political Change: Five Years of Contention in the Middle East and North Africa Friday, April 8 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM 365 Fifth Ave., Room 5318 Register here: https://avenue-of-socia-change.squarespace.com/ Five years after the eruption of mass protests across North Africa and the Middle East, citizens of these countries now live under contrasting conditions. While some countries, such as Tunisia, have made headway on the road to freedom and social justice, others, are embroiled in civil strife, like Syria, or are being crushed by the return of authoritarianism, like Egypt. Yet despite the zigzagging trajectory that these uprisings have thus far treaded, new channels and imaginings of social, political and economic change have opened up over the past five years. This conference will explore current possibilities that have been opened up through and in the aftermath of the grassroots uprisings that have swept through the region since 2011 and the sustained struggles for these arenas as well as the counter-efforts that have attempted to constrain and constrict them. Instead of succumbing to a choice between either presenting a triumphant narrative or emphasizing the democratic setbacks facing social movements, activists, and the population at large, this conference will attempt to reframe the question to ask what actual and concrete opportunities for economic, social and political transformation have unfolded beyond and despite of the historical and structural constraints that are in place. SCHEDULE Coffee and registration 9:00-9:30 (Room 5318) Panel 1: Urbanity and Violence 9:30 -10:30 (Room 5318) Deen Sharp (Geography, CUNY Graduate Center) "Urbicide and the Arrangement of Violence in Syria" Omnia Khalil (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center) "Cairo Spaces...Between Militarization and Gentrification" Sami Tayeb (Middle East Studies, American University in Beirut) "The Rawabi Urban Development Project: Occupied Space, Class Formation, and Social Change in Palestine" Panel 2: The State, Memory, and Subjectivity 10:45-12:15 (Room 5318) Elizabeth Nugent (Princeton) "The Politics of Repression: Collective Memory and Elite Polarization in Authoritarian Regimes" Mohammed Ezzedine (History, CUNY Graduate Center) "Abrupt Traditions, Stillborn Temporalities: Arwa Salih and the Post-1967 Generation in Egypt" Nada El-Kouny (Anthropology, Rutgers) "Ambivalent Aspirations: Generational Disjunctures and Sovereignty Making in Rural Egypt" Habiba Al-Awady (Sociology-Anthropology, American University in Cairo) "Egypt: A Case for Chaos" Shima Houshyar (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center) "Memory, Mourning, and the Politics of Reconciliation in Post-Green Movement Iran" Lunch 12:15-1:15 (Room 5109) Panel 3: Politics, Contention, and "Reform" 1:15-2:30 (Room 5318) Daniel Tavana (Princeton) "Mass Partisanship after the 'Arab Spring': Evidence from Tunisia" Eliana Abu Hamdi (UC Berkeley) "The Closure of the Amman Institute for Urban Development: Accusations, Anti-Corruption, and the Threat to Unregulated Development" Mohamed Hodeib (Middle East Studies, CUNY Graduate Center) "Summer Protests in Lebanon 2015: Military Courts Discipline and Punishment" Yosr Ben Slima (Middle East & Mediterranean Studies, King's College London) "Reclaiming Space: Irreligiosity in Urban and Virtual Spaces in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia" Key-Note Speaker 2:45-3:30 (Room 5318) Jillian Schwedler (Political Science, Hunter College). Closing Remarks 3:30-3:45 (Room 5318) Anthropology Colloquium: 4:15-6:00 (Room C415a) Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (History: Urbana-Champaign) "Foucault, Spirituality, and the Perils of Universal History" Reception 6:00 (Room 6402)

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 04/05: Dystopian Urbanisms
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

Dystopian Urbanisms April 5, 2016 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm More info: http://urbandemos.nyu.edu/event/dystopian-urbanisms/ By many measures, the global future does not look bright. Climate change is largely unaddressed, wealth inequality is skyrocketing, and violent conflict has created both forced migration and new forms of xenophobia. While most of these issues involve the (in)actions of nation-states, they will play out at the level of the city. Given the many new demands on shelter, access to food and water, and social integration, the challenges to maintaining democratic cities in the 21st century are enormous. This panel will consider those challenges and offer insight into several global examples of marginalized populations coping with 21st century urban problems. In particular, the panelists will analyze how new forms of exclusion are occurring in international cities in response to environmental factors such as climate vulnerability, land shortages, and water availability. Finally, they will reflect on whether a dystopian vision of 21st century urban life is justified, what forms it may take, and how it can potentially be mitigated. Panelists: Liza Weinstein, Associate Professor, Northeastern University, Sociology Gokce Gunel, Columbia University, Faculty Fellow, Anthropology Carlos Forment, Associate Professor and Director of Latin American Studies, New School for Social Research Moderator: Max Holleran, New York University, Sociology Please RSVP here<https://nyu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7QDX8dI5KoqKwjr>.

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/31: The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

Book Event | The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day Thursday, March 31 6:30 - 8:30 PM 365 Fifth Ave, Room 6402 About the book: "May Day is about affirmation, the love of life, and the start of spring, so it has to be about the beginning of the end of the capitalist system of exploitation, oppression, war, and overall misery, toil, and moil." So writes celebrated historian Peter Linebaugh in an essential compendium of reflections on the reviled, glorious, and voltaic occasion of May 1st. It is a day that has made the rich and powerful cower in fear and caused Parliament to ban the Maypole-a magnificent and riotous day of rebirth, renewal, and refusal. These reflections on the Red and the Green-out of which arguably the only hope for the future lies-are populated by the likes of Native American anarcho-communist Lucy Parsons, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, Karl Marx, José Martí, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxemburg, SNCC, and countless others, both sentient and verdant. The book is a forceful reminder of the potentialities of the future, for the coming of a time when the powerful will fall, the commons restored, and a better world born anew. Peter Linebaugh is a child of empire, schooled in London, Cattaraugus, N.Y., Washington D.C., Bonn, and Karachi. He went to Swarthmore College during the civil rights days. He has taught at Harvard University and Attica Penitentiary, at New York University and the Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. He used to edit Zerowork and was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. He coauthored Albion's Fatal Tree, and is the author of The London Hanged, The Many-Headed Hydra (with Marcus Rediker), The Magna Carta Manifesto, and introductions to a Verso book of Thomas Paine's writing and PM's new edition of E.P. Thompson's William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary. He works at the University of Toledo, Ohio. He lives in the Great Lakes region with a great crew, Michaela Brennan, his beautiful partner, and Riley, Kate, Alex, and Enzo.

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/30: The Iraq Debacle: A Conversation with Kanan Makiya and Lawrence Weschler
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

The Iraq Debacle: A Conversation with Kanan Makiya and Lawrence Weschler Wednesday, March 30 6:00 - 8:00 PM Arthur L. Carter Journalism School 20 Cooper Sq, 7th floor, New York More info: https://ipk.nyu.edu/calendar/events/299-the-iraq-debacle The Institute for Public Knowledge invites you to a conversation between Kanan Makiya and Lawrence Weschler on war, occupation, democracy, and sectarian violence in Iraq on the occasion of the publication of Makiya's new novel, The Rope<http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/249860/the-rope-by-kanan-makiya/978…>. In 1989, the Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya, understandably writing under a pseudonym, published Republic of Fear, a scathing indictment of the horrendously dystopian regime of Saddam Hussein then holding sway over his homeland. He came out from under that pseudonym in Lawrence Weschler's January 1992 profile in the New Yorker (subsequently included in Weschler's Calamities of Exile collection). Makiya went on to become one of the leading critics of Arab intellectual collusion in the persistence of totalitarian regimes across the Middle East, and an advocate of the urgent need for Western-supported regime change in Baghdad-presently providing intellectual and moral cover for the likes of Michael Ignatieff, Christopher Hitchens, and others in their support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Makiya, a frequent visitor to Iraq in the years since, came to have profound second, third and fourth thoughts about that position. He is now filtering some of those ideas through his new novel of intra-sectarian Shiite violence and betrayal in post-war Iraq, The Rope (Pantheon), including an imagined Grand Inquisitor-like conversation with Saddam himself, on the eve of the tyrant's botched execution. Makiya will read from his new novel and engage Weschler in a conversation about his own journey and where it has led him to in his current estimations of the situation across the Middle East. Kanan Makiya is among Iraq's most prominent democracy and human rights advocates. Born in Baghdad in 1949, he left Iraq in 1968 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but, starting in 1981, dedicated himself to advocacy for a free Iraq and the study of tyranny. His 1989 book, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, offered a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. Other works followed, including The Monument, and the prize-winning Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World. <http://www.meforum.org/718/kanan-makiya-all-levels-of-the-iraqi-government#…> Lawrence Weschler is an award winning writer, journalist, and curator. For over twenty years (1981-2002) he was a staff writer at The New Yorker, where his work shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies. He is the director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU which he led from 2001 to 2014. His over fifteen books include Calamities of Exile; A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers; and the forthcoming Domestic Scenes: The Art of Ramiro Gomez. This event is co-sponsored by the Literary Reportage program of the Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute at NYU <http://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/literary-reportage/> and the New York Institute for the Humanities.<http://www.nyihumanities.org/>

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/30: El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

Great New Books in the Humanities: El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America Wednesday, March 30 6:00 - 8:00 PM NYU Center for the Humanities 20 Cooper Square, Fifth Floor Registration: http://nyuhumanities.org/events/event-registration/?ee=91 Please join us for a discussion on El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America authored by Arlene Davila, In conversation with Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Media, Culture and Communications, and author Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance. And Julie Skurski, Distinguished Lecturer of Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. While becoming less relevant in the United States, shopping malls are booming throughout urban Latin America. But what does this mean on the ground? Are shopping malls a sign of the region's "coming of age"? El Mall is the first book to answer these questions and explore how malls and consumption are shaping the conversation about class and social inequality in Latin America. Through original and insightful ethnography, Dávila shows that class in the neoliberal city is increasingly defined by the shopping habits of ordinary people. Moving from the global operations of the shopping mall industry to the experience of shopping in places like Bogotá, Colombia, El Mall is an indispensable book for scholars and students interested in consumerism and neoliberal politics in Latin America and the world.

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/29: Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 28 Mar '16

28 Mar '16

Book Launch | Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood Tuesday, March 29, 6:30 - 8:00 PM The Institute for Public Knowledge 20 Cooper Sq, Room 503, New York In Summoned, sociologist Iddo Tavory takes readers into the fabric of everyday life in the largest Jewish Orthodox community in Los Angeles. In doing so, he explores the ways in which both entrenched institutions and fleeting moments of interaction shape community members' identifications and social worlds. On a typical weekday, men of the Beverly-La Brea Orthodox community wake up early, beginning their day with Talmud reading and prayer at 5:45am, before joining LA’s traffic. Those who work “Jewish jobs”—teachers, kosher supervisors, or rabbis—will stay enmeshed in the Orthodox world throughout the workday. But even for the majority of men who spend their days in the world of gentiles, religious life constantly reasserts itself. Neighborhood fixtures like Jewish schools and synagogues are always after more involvement; evening classes and prayers pull them in; the streets themselves seem to remind them of who they are. And so the week goes, culminating as the sabbatical observances on Friday afternoon stretch into Saturday evening. Life in this community, as Tavory describes it, is palpably thick with the twin pulls of observance and sociality. Just blocks from West Hollywood’s nightlife, the Orthodox community thrives next to the impure sights, sounds, and smells they encounter every day. But to sustain this life, as Tavory shows, is not simply a moral decision they make. Being Orthodox is to be constantly called into being. People are reminded of who they are as they are called upon by organizations, prayers quorums, the nods of strangers, whiffs of unkosher food floating through the street, or the rarer Anti-Semitic remarks. Again and again, they find themselves summoned both into social life and into their identity as Orthodox Jews. At the close of Tavory’s fascinating ethnography, we come away with a better understanding of the dynamics of social worlds, identity, interaction and self—not only in Beverly-La Brea, but in society at large. Iddo Tavory is Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University. His research has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, and Theory and Society. He is also the author, with Stefan Timmermans, of Abductive Analysis (2014), which presents a pragmatist approach to the relation among theory, method and observations in qualitative research. He received his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. Courtney Bender is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion, Columbia University. She is the author of Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver (University of Chicago Press 2003) and The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination (University of Chicago Press 2010). She is the co-editor of volumes on religious pluralism, secularism, and the sociology of religion, and served as the chair of the Social Science Research Council's research program New Directions in the Study of Prayer<http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/> (2011-15). A qualitative sociologist with a focus on American religious and cultural history, Bender’s current research investigates on the contributions of early twentieth century modernist movements to American spiritual cultures. Hasia Diner is the Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History and Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Historyat NYU, where she also serves as Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. In a series of projects dating to her first book, In the Almost-Promised Land (1977), which explored the ways in which American Jews engaged with issues surrounding the condition of black Americans in the early 20th century, through her most recent, We Remember with Reverence and Love (2009), which examined the ways in which Jews in post-World War II America built a public culture that memorialized the Holocaust, Diner has been interested on the mutual impacts of America and the Jews. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven books and numerous articles. Samuel Heilman is the Harold Proshansky Chair and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York, where his work has focused on the social ethnography of Jewish Orthodox communities in the United States. Heilman is the author of numerous articles and award-winning books, including The Rebbe (2010), Sliding to the Right (2006), When a Jew Dies (2002), Portrait of American Jewry (1996), A Walker in Jerusalem (1987), The Gate Behind the Wall (1984), Synagogue Life (1976), and others.

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] Upcoming Event
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 22 Mar '16

22 Mar '16

Hi, If anyone is interested in reducing gun violence as well as building awareness, there will be a discussion held at the Samuel Field Y. Please see the attached flyer. Best, Erica Tolentino Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/29: The Fight for Energy Democracy
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 21 Mar '16

21 Mar '16

The Fight for Energy Democracy: Forum at The Commons, Brooklyn There is a glut of oil and gas on the market. The price of fossil fuels has collapsed. Yet Big Energy is building more pipelines, compressor stations, storage facilities, and waste sites than ever before. With the active connivance of government, the oil and gas corporations are leveling forests, seizing farmland, and threatening our water supply, binding us to an energy system that will ultimately kill us. Come learn how workers, farmers, and ordinary people are fighting back to protect their families and the planet --and how you can help build the growing resistance. Forum with a Panel and Q&A with * Sean Sweeney, Murphy Institute Professor and Trade Unions for Energy Democracy * Kim Fraczek, Montrose 9 Resister and Sane Energy Project ?WHEN: Tuesday, March 29, 7 pm. WHERE: The Commons, 388 Atlantic Ave. between Bond and Hoyt, downtown Brooklyn Admission free ? All welcome ? Wheelchair accessible See it on Facebook<http://m1e.net/c?126123178-7dHMHypxMBP1k%40386968478-neqO9nSmoBGuQ>. RSVP and invite your friends!

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[UrbanStudiesCircular] 03/28: Plebeian Power: Collective Action and Indigenous, Working Class, and Popular Identities in Bolivia
by urbanstudiescircular＠lists.qc.cuny.edu 21 Mar '16

21 Mar '16

The Observatory on Latin America (OLA) of the New School and The Permanent Mission of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations are pleased to invite you to Plebeian Power Collective Action and Indigenous, Working Class, and Popular Identities in Bolivia Public Lecture and Book Presentation ÁLVARO GARCÍA LINERA Vice President of Bolivia [X] Introduced by David Van Zandt President, The New School Michael Cohen OLA Director, The New School The Observatory on Latin America (OLA) at The New School and The Permanent Mission of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations are pleased to present Álvaro García Linera, Bolivian Vice President and a prominent intellectual force in the government of President Evo Morales. Garcia Linera's theoretical trajectory began with efforts to combine Marxism and Indianism. It later developed in reaction to the neoliberal turn of the 1980s and in contact with the mass social movements of recent years. Garcia Linera reflects on the nature of the State, class, and indigenous identity and their relevance to social struggles in Bolivia. In this opportunity he will present his book Plebeian Power: Collective Action and Indigenous. Working Class and Popular Identities in Bolivia, an analysis of Bolivian processes of social change, published by Haymarket Books. Monday, March 28th, 2016 2:00 - 4:00pm Theresa Lang Student Center | The New School 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY see the map[r20.rs6.net]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__r20.rs6.net_tn.jsp-3Fe-…> The event will be in English and Spanish. Simultaneous translation available. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Reservations are required. Please RSVP by Friday, March 25th at plebeianpower.eventbrite.com[r20.rs6.net]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__r20.rs6.net_tn.jsp-3Fe-…> For more information, visit the OLA website[r20.rs6.net]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__r20.rs6.net_tn.jsp-3Fe-…>

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