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The City Centre

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The City Centre

The City Centre is a network of communication and activity at Queen Mary University of London that aims to promote and develop collaborative, cross-disciplinary work on city lives and connections.

Welcome to the City Centre

Our affiliate members include staff, researchers, visiting scholars and postgraduate students at Queen Mary as well as The University of London in Paris (ULIP). The City Centre has a dedicated seminar room in the School of Geography that can be used for teaching, meetings and events.

We welcome inquiries from prospective students and researchers, particularly those whose work aligns with any of our current research themes. Outside parties are also encouraged to contact us with ideas for collaboration or partnership. 

City Centre Advisory Team and Members

Our advisory board and affiliate members come from across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Research themes

Explore the themes that reflect our interdisciplinary research interests

Publications

See how our wide-ranging research on city lives comes to life.

Partnerships

We have forged links with parties and institutions both within and outside of academia and are keen to continue doing so.

Events

Learn about upcoming and recent City Centre events.

Upcoming Events

We are currently planning new events. Please keep an eye on this page and stay tuned!

Past Events

Public Lecture: 'Walking With the Ghosts of Palestine: Reconstructing Pre-Nakba Ludd'

Lecture took place on 26 Feb 2025. Image was uploaded in the Media Library on 5 March 2025.

  •  Dr Tawfiq Da'adli (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, QMUL IHSS Visiting Fellow for 2024-25) gave a public lecture to reconstruct the urban fabric of pre-1948 Ludd, one of Palestine’s major cities, situated on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The Old City of Ludd no longer exists, like many towns and villages destroyed in the Nakba, and most of Ludd’s indigenous inhabitants have been forced from their homes.

Dr Da'adli's lecture combined visual, material and archival sources to virtually guide the audience through three of Ludd’s neighbourhoods, focusing on families that played a central role in the town’s social life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This lecture was co-sponsored by the City Centre and the QMUL School of History. 26 February 2025.

Manifestos Now! Making Claims for Urban Change

  •  Professor David Pinder (Roskilde University) visited the School of Geography at QMUL to discuss the functions and the value of manifestos in promoting social, geographical and political change in cities around the world. Exploring the genre of manifestos through a series of study cases, Professor Pinder highlighted the particularity of manifestos and prompted further thinking on how they could be used today. 11 December 2024.

The Social Impacts of LTNs: Film screening and panel discussion

  •  Estelle Broyer (QMUL Doctoral Student) lead a screening of Rowdy Sharman's film Divided, followed by a panel and public discussion of the impacts and pros/cons and implementation of London's Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.  14 March 2023. 

David M. Smith Annual Lecture

  • Professor Anoop Nayak (Newcastle University) 'Blasted Places: Smog, Steel and Stigma in a Post-industrial Region' 6pm, Thursday 9th December. QMUL Geography Building Room 1.26

Crowds, Affects Cities

  • 2020-21 Seminar Series, in collaboration with the QMUL Centre for the History of Emotions 

Covid-19 has caused widespread disruption to the pleasures and possibilities of gathering in cities, bringing new forms of anxiety to urban encounters and witnessing crowd scenes, whether lockdown protests or the jubilant celebrations after the US election. As we make do in this time of social distancing, this series provides an opportunity to assemble (online) and reflect on the intensities, emotions and experiences of urban crowds. Interdisciplinary and international in scope, seminars will entail 35 minute presentations with time for questions and discussion to follow. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

Email Regan Koch to register your interest and recieve the recurring Zoom link for each sesson. 

 

19th May, 5pm. Dr Deborah Gould (University of California)

'Passion & Danger in Trump's Time and After'

7th April, 1pm. Dr Nida Kirmani (Lahore University)

'Playing at the Boundary: Exporing the Relationship Fetween Feminim and Fun in Karachi'

24th March, 1pm. Prof Christian Borch (Sociology, Copenhagen Business School)

'Urban Avalanche: Crowds, Cities and Financial Markets'

10th March, 1pm.  Prof Colin McFarlane (Geography, Durham University)

'The crowd and Covid-19'

24th February 1pm. Prof Benno Gammerl (History, European University Institute)

'Happy together? The intimate publics of gay liberation'. 

24th March, 1pm. Prof Christian Borch (Sociology, Copenhagen Business School)

'Urban Avalanche: Crowds, Cities and Financial Markets'

16th December 8pm.  Dr Ben Gook, History, University of Melbourne

Collectivity and Affect in Crisis Times: Dancing in Berlin, 1989-2020

 2nd December 1-2pm.  Dr Illan Wall, Law, Warwick University

The State of Unrest: Crowds, Protests, Atmospheres. 

 

Mitigation or Adaption: Hard Choices for Cities

  • Seminar with Professor Richard Sennett, 25 June 2020

 The City in a Time of Social Distancing

  • Seminar with Professor Alan Latham (UCL), Anna-Louise Milne (ULIP) and AbdouMaliq Simone (Sheffield), 14 May 2020

Contact us

To get in touch, please email City Centre Director, Dr Elsa Noteman at citycentre@qmul.ac.uk. Queen Mary affiliates are welcome to join our internal mailing list.

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