The Sheffield Urbanism Lecture Series

The Sheffield Urbanism Lecture series is an initiative of the Urban Institute to generate provocative and nonstandard propositions for understanding processes of urbanization and urban life.

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It is intended as a space to reimagine both the conceptualizations and narratives of urban studies. The lecture series provides a context for Faculty of Social Science colleagues to present an innovative thesis in a systemic and programmatic manner over the course of a series of lectures.

The 2021 lecture series is on the Future of Climate Urbanism. Climate urbanism has become an important much debated and necessary topic of discussion in urban scholarship. This follows a long trajectory in which cities have become interested in possible responses to global environmental change, which, since the 1990s, has linked environmental challenges with urban development models.  Precisely what this means for cities and urban lives is unclear. Comprising lectures from Professors Vanesa Castàn Broto and Simon Marvin, the series explored the multiple lives of climate urbanism, technologies of climate urbanism and queering climate urbanism.

The 2020 lecture series was delivered by Professor AbdouMaliq Simone. The Urban Surrounds: From Extinction to Abolition examined spaces and temporalities of urbanization from the viewpoints of abolitionist histories and sensibilities, and in ways that attempted to circumvent the apparatuses of anti-blackness that have shaped urban life everywhere. The three lectures were entitled: Without Capture, It’s Forgetting Time and Rebellion without Redemption and were attended by over 300 participants from around the world.

The lectures can be watched on the Urban Institute’s Youtube Channel