Soil, Soul & Society: Imagining the Post-fossil City

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Why is it so difficult to think of new possible worlds?

Research clearly shows that the trend towards urbanization is expected to continue. It is clear that building cities according to the modernist principles of the 20th Century will lead to an environmental disaster, yet the transition to ‘post-fossil’ urbanization is slow in coming.

Hajer argues this has to do with the fact that we lack new imaginaries, new appealing conceptions of future city life. In his talk Hajer will reflect on the question why we have lost the capacity to imagine alternative urban futures. Learning from the literature on Science Fiction and practices like ‘research by design’, Hajer aims to recoup our capacity to think of alternative possible worlds.

In conversation with Professor Maarten A. Hajer:

Maarten Hajer is a distinguished professor of Urban Futures at the Faculty of GeoSciences of Utrecht University and director of the UU Urban Futures Studio. He is also an Extra-Ordinary Professor at the Institute for Complex Systems in Transition at the University of Stellenbosch.

Light refreshments will be enjoyed after the talk.

Please RSVP by Friday, 3 February 2017 with Yonela: yonela@sustainabilityinstitute.net