Wiscon panel: City As History/City As Liberator

[sqbr]

This was a very interesting panel, even just watching a recording, but I was SUPER tired so just let it wash over me.

The only note I took on the panel itself was: the panelists described how Americans see themselves as farmers and frontiersmen when this is blatantly untrue for most people. This reminded me of Australia.

Under the cut: links and book recs I copied from the discord chat. Mostly about the US, including some discussion of Covid. Pretty sure I missed some.

Cities have long served as both the nexus of existing power structures and a space where they can be transformed. SF writers from George Orwell to Samuel Delaney to Charlie Jane Anders have imagined how physical and social architecture interact to create spaces for both oppression and liberation. How does fiction inform how we envision our cities? How do recent subway protests in Chile and NYC assert the right to public space? How can we work in our own cities to support that right?
M: Sarah Peters. Charlie Jane Anders, Anna Blumstein, KJ, Claire Light, Annalee Newitz

Four Lost Cities

The City Is A Battlesuit For Surviving The Future

Nature's Metropolis

Opus africanum

Amal El-Mohtar’s tribute to Damascus

Libidissi

Le Guin's Changing Planes ("Seasons of the Ansarac")

how universal is transit’s geometry?

Hao Jinfang's novelette "Folding Beijing

Join Us to Reclaim Our Power!

City: Rediscovering the Center by William H. Whyte

Santa Clara County Releases COVID-19 Case Data by ZIP Code

LibGuides: Rondo Neighborhood & I-94: Overview

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

thoughts/links by Sumana

As Trump and McConnell mock clean energy, the industry could soon lose a half-million jobs

City Spaces, Human Places

David Harvey, The Right to the City, NLR 53, September–October 2008

Ring has more than 400 police “partnerships,” company finally says

Sogorea Te' Land Trust

Real Rent Duwamish

Food Deserts: Correlation is not Causation But…

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

"A Memory called Empire" by Arkady Martine
CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG by MAUREEN F. MCHUGH
The City We Became by NK Jemisin
Blackfish City by Simon J Miller
Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer
Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next by John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay
China Mieville's The City and the City
Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning
Henri Lefebvre - The Right to the City
The Brothel of Pompeii by Sarah Levin Richardson
Sarah Peters
The Green Bone Trilogy by Fonda Lee
Samuel Delany: Neveryon series; Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand
Martha Wells Ile Rien books
The High Cost of Free Parking

Comments

[muccamukk]

I found that panel so frustrating! The moderator didn't really seem to have a handle on dividing the time, so two panellists talked for most of it, and Charlie Jane Anders who I was there to see got to say next to nothing.

[sqbr]

I was listening while playing a game, so didn't really notice who said what, but do know that sort of thing can be frustrating.

[eccentric_hat]

Thank you so much for compiling this--I was thinking of doing it if someone else didn't first, but you saved me the work!

I'd really love to see this conversation continue somehow. There was very little discussion of SFnal treatments of cities, for example...I also would have liked to hear Charlie Jane Anders talk more. It was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing but one more recommendation was when she mentioned Frank O'Hara's poetry, a lot of which is about the texture of city life.

[sqbr]

Yeah there were a lot of interesting things they didn't get a chance to address. I'm glad the list is useful!

[eccentric_hat]

I could have sworn I commented on this post earlier, but that comment isn't here, so who knows. Maybe I closed a window too early. Apologies if I didn't and you're getting double comments somehow.

Anyway, thanks for compiling this list! This is SUCH a broad and deep topic; I hope there's opportunity to continue the conversation later.

edit: okay I obviously forgot screening comments was a thing! sorry about that.

[sqbr]

That's ok! I'd actually forgotten I had screening on myself >.>