COVID and the Urban: cross-disciplinary perspectives on emergency

Simon Marvin

Director of the Urban Institute at The University of Sheffield

Simon Marvin is an internationally recognised academic with an excellent publication profile, with expertise in constructing conceptual understanding and empirical evidence of the changing relations between socio-technical networks and urban and regional restructuring. He has extensive experience of directing successful urban research centres in previous roles at Newcastle University, Salford University, and Durham University, where he was Chair in the Department of Geography.

Simon’s work is noted for the way it develops innovative, interdisciplinary perspectives to help open up and explore important new agendas for urban studies and infrastructural research. He has played major roles within urban and planning research towards addressing important questions surrounding telecommunications, infrastructure and mobility, sustainability and, most recently, systemic transitions, climate change, ecological security and smart cities.

He is currently working as either PI or Co-I on five RCUK funded grants, including two projects, one impact grant, and two international networks employing five researchers as well as research work for the Swedish Mistra Urban Futures Foundation.  Finally, he regularly undertakes work for policy users, including central government and urban and regional agencies in the UK, Europe, and internationally. Simon is currently an urban expert on the JPI Urban Europe Scientific Advisory Board.

Kasia Mika

Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University London

I joined QMUL’s Department of Comparative Literature in September 2019 as a Lecturer in Comparative Literature. Prior to that, I was a Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and held a postdoc fellowship at KITLV (The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) in Comparative Caribbean Studies.

My research and teaching focus on topics that are socially and politically urgent with crisis, vulnerability, justice and futures being key to my pedagogy and my wider work in disaster studies, environmental humanities and postcolonial studies. I work across literature, film, and visual art and see creativity and imagination as central to the how we make sense of the world around us. 

My monograph, Disasters, Vulnerability, and Narratives: Writing Haiti’s Futures (Routledge 2019) uses narrative responses to the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a starting point for an analysis of notions of disaster, vulnerability, reconstruction and recovery. In my analysis, I turn to concepts of hinged chronologies, slow healing, and remnant dwelling, offering a vision of open-ended Caribbean futures, full of resolve.

Building on this work, I have recently produced a short documentary, Intranqu’îllités (2019), on art and creativity in Haiti (filmed on site) which won the AHRC Research in Film Award (2019).

My seminars are all about working and reading together towards a better, more critical understanding of the world around us. All courses I teach are rooted in an inclusive dialogue and encourage everyone to participate and learn from each other.

“Dialogue, as the encounter of those addressed to the common task of learning and acting, is broken if the parties (or one of them) lack humility. How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own?’  (Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed 2000:90)

Austin Zeiderman

Associate Professor of Geography at LSE

Austin Zeiderman is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who specializes in the cultural and political dimensions of urbanization, development, and the environment in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a specific focus on Colombia. His 2016 book, Endangered City, examines the political imperative to govern the present in anticipation of future threats, and its implications for cities and urban life.

William Raban

Artist filmmaker, professor emeritus of film at London College of Communication

Mehrnaz Ghojeh

Head of City Finance Facility at C40 Cities

Mehrnaz Ghojeh is the Head of City Finance Facility where she is leading efforts on implementation on inclusive and equitable climate projects globally. Prior to C40 Mehrnaz was an urban development specialist at BuroHappold and has held positions with the Greater London Authority and Tehran Municipality. Her research focuses on the evolving role of city networks and the urban governance challenges facing action on the nexus of climate, health and equity in cities. Mehrnaz holds an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design from University of Cambridge and is a regular guest lecturer at universities both in the UK and internationally.

Carina Fearnley

Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies, Director, UCL Warning Research Centre at UCL

Carina is Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College London and Director of the UCL Warning Research Centre, the world’s only Centre dedicated to international research and collaboration with stakeholders to devise better warnings for all hazards. She is an interdisciplinary researcher, drawing on relevant expertise in the social sciences on scientific uncertainty, risk, and complexity to focus on how natural hazard early warning systems can be made more effective, specifically alert level systems. She also has passion in the transdisciplinary potential of art and science collaborations around environmental hazards. Carina established the World Organisation of Volcano Observatories Volcano Alert Level Working Group, and edited the first publication dedicated to Volcanic Crisis Communication (Observing the Volcano World: Volcanic Crisis Communication).

Ajay Heble

Director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI), and Professor of English at The University of Guelph

Ajay Heble is the founding Director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI), and Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. His research has covered a full range of topics in the arts and humanities, and has resulted in 15 books,  numerous articles or chapters, and over 100 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows trained and mentored. He was the founding Artistic Director of the award-winning Guelph Jazz Festival and Colloquium (from 1994 to 2016), and he is a founding co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Critical Studies in Improvisation/Études critiques en improvisation (www.criticalimprov.com). He is also an improvising musician.