Crisis-Thinking and Critical Urbanism

Lecture by prof. Colin McFarlane

Crisis-thinking has become increasingly central to critical urban thought and practice. In his talk, Prof Colin McFarlane will reflect on what the proliferation of ‘crisis-thinking’ might do to how the urban is conceived, researched, and politicised. What might it enable, and what might it make us less able to see and do? What might the growth of crisis-thinking, and in particular of polycrisis-thinking, do to how we see urban possibility? And what it might mean to imagine a critical urbanism without crisis-thinking?

Date: 8 July 2026
Time: 15:30 -17:00
Location: Roeterseilandcampus - building A
Room: A2.07

About the speakers

Colin McFarlane is Professor of Urban Geography at Durham University (United Kingdom). His work focuses on the experience and politics of the city. Key publications include Learning the City: Knowledge and Translocal Assemblage (2011), Fragments of the City: Making and Remaking Urban Worlds (2021), and Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife (2023).

Discussant is Julie Ren (Associate Professor in Urban Geographies at the University of Amsterdam). Her recent work explores how crisis-thinking shifts the spaces of possibility for geographical research practice and global theory formation, for example seen in the recent Special Feature in City on Critical Geographies of Everyday Crisis (2026).

The lecture will be moderated by Jannes Willems (Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam).

This lecture is made possible by the ARL International Summer School on Urban Infrastructures, taking place at the University of Amsterdam from 6-9 July 2026.

Roeterseilandcampus - building A

Room A2.07
Nieuwe Achtergracht 166
1018 WV Amsterdam

Crisis-Thinking and Critical Urbanism

About the speakers

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