Progressive Geographies

This should be coming out on video/youtube soon. Until then, here is an audio podcast available for download.

Here is the write up:

Recent debates about human shields in the summer bombardment of Gaza raised the question of how the unarmed human form comes to be regarded as a military instrument. The lecture will consider how the perception of racialized bodies as threatening instruments informs both the public debates on the use of children as human shields in Gaza and the numerous figures of unarmed Black men and women in US cities who are gunned down either because they seem to be reaching for weapons or because their gestures, including their standing still, are regarded as weapons. In the context of the increasing militarization of police forces tasked with containing or eliminating social protest against social and economic inequality, how is racial perception both built and ratified through recasting the…

Urbanism and Dictatorship. A European Perspective, the new book of the renowned Bauwelt Fundamente series, is out. The volume has been edited by Max Welch Guerra, Harald Bodenschatz and Piero Sassi, and includes theoretical essays and case studies from Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the former USSR. The material is an excellent opportunity for comparative analysis and the reconceptualization of the sociospatial experience of cities and urbanization under dictatorial regimes.

In the first half of the twentieth century, urban design under the influence of European dictatorships not only served to support the rulers in their own country, but also to gain the recognition of the democratic states. After the National Socialist regime came to power in Germany, urban design increasingly became the trump card in the competition amongst the large dictatorships in Europe – almost as in the time of absolutism. Irrespective of all conflicts and political orientations, there…