Wild Cities Past Event
What does it mean to be “wild” in the 21st century? How is the concept of civilisation grounded in damage and dispossession? If we accept that we are in the midst of a climate emergency what can we do to shift that? Four new books – Planning Wild Cities: Human-Nature Relationships in the Urban Age, Wild Policy: Indigeneity and the Unruly Politics of Intervention, People Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons and Dirty Theory: Troubling Architecture – explore these interrelated questions and in different ways ask whether we care enough for the earth and each other to reimagine our urban futures.
Wendy Steele
Wendy Steele is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Urban Research (CUR) at RMIT University, Melbourne. Her research focuses on the nature of wild cities in climate change with current projects on quiet activism, urban futures, climate justice and the need to re-politicise sustainability as a transformative agenda for cities and communities.
Tess Lea
Tess Lea is an anthropologist who specialises in the cultural life of policy. Her fundamental interest is with issues of (dys)function: how it occurs and to what, whom and how it is ascribed.Her work introduces new ways of thinking about policy as something that can be acted upon, but also shapes our everyday environments in chaotic and unequal ways.
Ashley Dawson
Ashley Dawson is a Professor of English at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and at the College of Staten Island/CUNY. His fields of specialisation are cultural studies, environmental humanities, postcolonial studies and climate justice.
Hélène Frichot
Hélène Frichot is Professor of Architecture and Philosophy, and Director of the Bachelor of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning University of Melbourne, Australia. She is an architectural theorist and philosopher, writer and critic.