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CITY Seminar Series

The CITY Institute Seminar Series is open to the public and includes talks and events on all things urban. Speakers include: academics, practitioners, alumni, CITY visiting scholars and postdoctoral fellows, and others.  

Fall 2025

DateTimeTitle Speakers
September 11 20252:30 to 4:00 PMInhabiting the afterlives of extended urbanization in Noida, India The hauntings of housing in a city stretched between the state and capitalDevra Waldman (Florida State University)
September 12 20251:00 - 3:00 PMBOOK LAUNCH - Queerburbia: A Dialogue about LGBTQ2S Suburban Place-makingAlison Bain (York University) and Julie Podmore (John Abbott College)
October 30 20252:30 to 4:30 pmThe State of (Anti-)Racism in GermanyMahir Türkmen ( PhD Student, Institute for Social Research Frankfurt, CITY Institute Visiting Scholar, Fall 2025)
November 7, 202510:00 - 11:00 amNurturing Infrastructures of Care: Centering Healing, Imagination and Solidarity in Polycrisis Response with Dr. Chiara CamponeschiChiara Camponeschi (Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Dahdaleh Institute)
November 18, 20253:00 - 4:00 pmThe Misrecognition of Misrecognition: Caste, Recognition and the Politics of Waste Work in Urban IndiaHarsha Anantharaman (YCAR Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian Studies), Aarushie Sharma (PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, York University)
November 25, 2025 1:30 - 3:00 pmCity Hall – a material expression of elite power, urban democracy or an active civil society?Laura Kolbe (Professor, Department of History, University of Helsinki, CITY Institute Visiting Professor, Fall 2025)

Winter 2025

Date

Time

Title

Speakers

January 30 2025

5:00 to 6:30 PM

Bringing Lefebvre to urban planning in Geneva

Karine Duplan & Sebastien Lambelet

February 27th 2025

12:30 to 1:30 PM

Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Labour and Buildings

Lindsey Rolheiser

March 7 2025

1:00 PM to 2:30 PM

Jakarta: The City of a Thousand Dimensions

Abidin Kusno, Kanishka Goonewardena, Shubhra Gururani, Kenneth Cardenas

March 21 2025

4:30 to 6:00 PM

Contested Security Politics in Post-Bankruptcy Detroit

Stefan Treffers

March 31 2025

12:00 to 1:30 PM (TBD)

Seeing Democracy Like a City

Ross Beveridge

Summer 2024/ Fall 2024

Date

Time

Title

Speakers

April 9 2024

5:30 - 7:30 PM

Access to Post-Secondary Education: For whom? For what?

Beverly-Jean Daniel, Tanya Aberman, Miles Turner, Vidya Shah, Sonia Lewis

April 24 2024

1:00pm to 2:30 pm

Problematising cycling equity: City-wide networks and differentiated infrastructures in Mexico City and Toronto

Thomas Van Laake

May 9 2024

1:00pm to 2:30 pm

Graduate students roundtable: Researching Climate Change in Canadian Cities (co-sponsored by Robarts)

Graduate Students

June 14 2024

1:00pm to 2:30 pm

Building an “inclusive city”: The production of “winning” and “losing” communities as part of the “urban revitalization” of old pericentral neighborhoods of Brussels

Alexandre Donnen

August 12 2024

1:00pm to 2:30 pm

Walking the City Series: Aki’s Echo with Professor Lisa Myers

Lisa Myers

September 19 2024

11:00 to 1:00 PM

"Parochial Territorializations. Towards a critique of insular worldbuilding"

Anke Schwarz

October 25 2024

8:00 AM to 7:00 PM

** CITY Institute Graduate Student Conference

Graduate Students

December 6 2024

11:00 to 12:30 PM

Book Talk – Outlaw Capital: Everyday Illegalities and the Making of Uneven Development

Jennifer L. Tucker

December 12 2024

3:30 to 5:00 PM

Social spatial patterns of urban development and how they are affected by ‘big tech’

Constance Carr

Fall 2022 / Winter 2023

DateTimeTitle Speakers
October 28 1:00pm to 2:30 pmTime and Race in Postwar Urban AmericaProf. Paul Lawrie
November 25 1:00pm to 2:30 pmPower to the People: Electricity and Urban Life in Nineteenth-Century NigeriaProf. Damilola Adebayo
January 271:00pm to 2:30 pm (t.b.d.)Dr. Araby Smyth
February 241:00pm to 2:30 pm (t.b.d.)(t.b.d.)
March 171:00pm to 2:30 pmUrbanism without Guarantees: A parallax view of everyday life and place-based urban political economy, by Prof. Christian Anderson, University of Washington Bothell, EUC Scholar-in-Residence
April 141:00pm to 2:30 pm Art in the Korean Smart CityDr. Melanie Wilmink

Fall 2021 / Winter 2022

DateTimeTitle Speakers
September 24 4-5:30 pmThe Impact of Federal Election on the GTAShannon Holness
John Lorinc
Saman Tabasinejad
October 28 1-2:30 pmHousing in a State of Emergency: Shelters, Encampments,
and Human Rights Discourses in Toronto
Allison Evans
Luisa Sotomayor
Estair Van Wagner
November 23-24 8:30-4:15 pmCivicLabTO SummitCity of Toronto officials & academics from
Centennial College, George Brown College,
Humber College, OCAD University, Ryerson
University, Seneca College, University of Toronto, & York University
December 612:30 - 2 pmUrban Research Methodology: NVivo and Feminist Urban ResearchElsa Koleth
Biftu Yousef
January 28 1-2:30pm Making Place: Indigenous Education in the CitySusan Dion
February 18 1-2:30pm The Impacts of COVID-19 on the Everyday Lives of Women of Cochabamba,
Delhi, Georgetown, Ibadan, and Shanghai: A Comparative Analysis
Nasya Razavi
March 171-2:30pmCities and the Climate CrisisLaura Taylor
April 2012-5:30pm Graduate Student Conference in Urban StudiesKeynote Speaker: Dr. Nidhi Subramanyam (University of Toronto)