Past events: Birkbeck Urban Studies Group Seminar Series
2011
Tuesday 22nd November: 12.00-2.00pm.
Venue: Room 532, Malet Street building, Birkbeck, University of London, London, WC1E 7HX (Entrance on Torrington Square)
‘Creative Research in the City: interdisciplinarity and the diverse urban community’
Dr Marta Rabikowska (Senior Lecturer in Media and Advertising, UEL)
Matthew Hawkins (PHD student, filmmaker, UEL)
In this presentation Rabikowska and Hawkins will discuss the results
of their interdisciplinary research praxis in one urban community of South
East London, which gave foundation to a theoretical discussion on the
intellectual and political underpinnings of researching community and
creativity. As a leader of a local community group, Rabikowska analyses the
dynamics of internal relations between its members and the links with the
diverse local population in the area. As a filmmaker, Hawkins produces films
in the same environment which provides creative settings to his features,
which in turn become part of the life of the community. Rabikowska and Hawkins
critique the modernist take on multiculturalism and creativity as those inventions of
modernity which contributed to a democratic project of 'diverse homogeneity'
on the one hand and commercialisation of creative distinction on the other.
They will look into the post-enlightenment traditions of liberalism and
identity which have been well adapted in the last two decades as the tools of
technocratic argumentation in the discourse of neo-liberal politics in the
UK. While looking into a "conflictual" (Chantal Mouffe) nature of community
relations, they will argue that peaceful co-existence of community members in
a diverse metropolis is not possible, and as a political concept it is saturated
by pragmatism and rationalism inherited from the utopian ethos of modernism
affecting the approach to creativity understood as a method of urban
development. Rabikowska and Hawkins propose a method of "creative research"
in an urban localisation which engages community in a series of "conflictual
experiences", intellectually in contrast with the politics of synchronised
interdisciplinary and peaceful co-existence of diverse urban populations.***
Tuesday 8th November, 1.00 - 2.00pm
Venue: room 407, 30 Russell Square, London WC1
Riots, Revanchism and Regeneration: situating 'the urban' under New Labour and the Coalition
Andrew Wallace (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
***
Tuesday 7th June, 1.00 - 2.00pm
Mica Nava (University of East London)
'Visceral Cosmopolitanism: From Alterity to Mere Difference'
venue: room 103 at 28 Russell Square, London WC1.
Mica Nava will discuss some of the conceptual and historical issues raised in her book Visceral Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Culture and the Normalisation of Difference. This focuses mainly on the UK twentieth century metropolitan experience and is concerned with cosmopolitanism as a ‘structure of feeling’ - as an empathetic, inclusive and sometimes eroticised range of feelings and attitudes towards others, otherness and the foreign - which finds expression in vernacular and domestic forms as well as in commerce, social science and the arts. Mica Nava is Professor of Cultural Studies and Co-director of the Centre for Cultural Studies Research in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of East London, UK. Her publications include Changing Cultures: Feminism, Youth and Consumerism (1992), Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of English Modernity (1996) and Visceral Cosmopolitanism (2007)
Film Screenings, ‘Intrusions: Vampires, Strangers and Monstrous Others’
A series of free film screenings followed by discussion.5th May, 6pm-9pm ‘Let the Right One In’ (Tomas Alfredson 2008)
12th May, 6pm-9pm, Unveiled’ (Angelina Maccarone 2005)
19th May, 6pm-9pm, ‘The Intruder’ (Claire Denis 2004)
26th May, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (George A. Romero 1978)Venue: 43 Gordon Square London WC1 0PD. This link shows a map of the venue www.birkbeckcinema.com/filmsociety/whereweare.htm
Tuesday 24th May, 1.00- 2.00 pm.
'Suburban Development in Post-Socialist Cities - the example of Wroclaw, Poland'
Dr Katarzina Kajdanek, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Venue: room 204 in the Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX
Monday 7th March, 1.00 - 3.00pm
Dr. Stuart Hodkinson (Department of Geography, University of Leeds), 'Public Housing Regeneration under the Private Finance Initiative: A Different Kind of Disaster Capitalism'
Fred Milson (community activist), 'What ails the Aylesbury estate?'
Venue: Room 102, Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck, University of London, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX
Tuesday 8th February, 1.00-2.00pm Urban History Seminar
Dr. Denis Dillon (CSV/Springboard), 'Neighbourhood Renewal and Community Capacity: The Experience of the London Borough of Haringey'.Room 252, Malet St, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX
2010
Tuesday 30th November 2010, 1.00-2.00pm
‘Youth Transitions, Road Culture & Badness: An Ethnographic Study of a Black East London Neighbourhood’
Anthony Gunter (UEL), Venue: Room 124 at 43 Gordon Square (Birkbeck, University of London), London WC1H 0PD
Tuesday 26th October 2010, 1.00-2.00pm
‘From the Docklands to Notting Hill: cultural mappings of post-imperial Britain’
Eleni Liarou (Birkbeck, University of London), Venue: room 124 at 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD
Surveillance and the City: May 2010
Film Screenings and Roundtable Discussion. All 6.00pm – 8.00pm, The Cinema at 43 Gordon Square, London WC1
10 May, Screening 1: The Conversation (Francis Ford Copplla 1974)
17 May, Screening 2: Red Road (Andrea Arnold 2006)
24 May, Screening 3: Hidden (Cache) Michael Haneke 20057 June, Roundtable discussion chaired by Dr Amber Jacobs – venue B03, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1
1 June 2010
‘The thresholds of a functional landscape: the architecture of the London Underground and the Paris Metro c.1860-1910’.
Carlos Lopez Galviz.
Room 103, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1
16 March
'The architectures of media power: editing, the newsroom and urban public space'.
Dr Scott Rodgers, Lecturer in Media Theory, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck, University of London.
Malet St, London WC1E 7HX
19th January
‘(Counter) narratives of space and the politics of resistance in a Parisian banlieue’
Dr Gareth Millington (Roehampton University) & Dr David Garbin (CRONEM, University of Surrey)
Room 253 Malet Street
2009
8th December 2009
'Memoryscape: experiments in using oral history to explore our sense of place'
Dr Toby Butler (University of East London)
Room 624 Malet Street
3rd November 2009
‘Working Men’s Clubs, housing estates and community since 1945’
Dr Ruth Cherrington (University of Warwick)
Room 630, Malet StreetFor a report on this event, click here
23 June 2009
1.00-2.00 pm, Room 509
Dr Matt Cook, 'The Brixton Squats: gay community in the 1970s'12 May 2009
1.30-2.30 pm, Room 101, Birkbeck College, 30 Russell Square, London WC1
Dr Paul Watt, '"Avoiding the Other": fear and loathing in the east London suburbs'The Corner (2000): screening and round-table discussion
Screenings from 6.00-8.00 pm, 27 April 2009, 11 May 2009, 18 May 2009, 1 June
The critically acclaimed mini-series, The Corner, chronicles the life of a family living in poverty amid the open-air drug markets of West Baltimore. The series was screened two episodes at a time over three weeks with a round table discussion in the fourth.
Dr Amber Jacobs was the convenor for this event.
17 March 2009
1.00-2.00pm, Room 152
Professor Linda Mulcahy, 'Temples of Justice? Symbols of law in the new C19th cityscape'
20 January 2009
1.00-2.00 pm, Room 631
Dr David Feldman, 'The New East End: immigration, history and the city'