The City Centre

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. 

Upcoming Events

Welcoming Cities? Urban Migration Policies in the Hostile Environment. Monday, 28 April 2025, 17h-18:30h GMT+1.

In the wake of the second Trump presidency, ‘sanctuary cities’ are once again in the spotlight. One of Trump’s first executive orders was ‘Protecting the American People Against Invasion’ which has been described as ‘doubling down’ on his attack on cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Cities not only have been threatened with defunding (as in Trump 1.0) but also individual Mayors have been threatened with prosecution if they ‘get in the way’ of mass deportations.

Cities have long been seen as the site of progressive politics where national hostility towards migrants might be ameliorated. Some cities have been heralded as places where migrants find safety or at least the ability to live a ‘liveable life’. Grassroots urban solidarity movements advocating for a ‘politics of presence’ have inspired new practices of urban citizenship. In addition, the actions of municipal governments across Europe, North America and beyond have made bold innovations in outwardly contradicting hostile national policies. These policies have taken various forms including municipal ID cards, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policies enabling precaritised residents to access public services, firewall policies that stop data being shared between municipal and national government, and even limited voting rights in municipal elections.

However, with the rise of right-wing populism and openly racist authoritarian governments, cities are under strain. In the UK, austerity and hostile environment policies make it increasingly difficult for cities to support precarious migrants. The criminalization of solidarity and restrictions on rights to protest further increase pressure. This shifting context raises questions about what political potentials might be opened or foreclosed in cities that openly declare themselves ‘sanctuary’ or ‘welcoming’ cities and why some cities choose to take this path. What is the often unseen work that goes into creating and maintaining a ‘sanctuary’ or ‘welcoming’ city? What can they really achieve despite the huge limitations on their budgets and legal/political power? How might municipal governments, grassroots activists and migrants themselves find new ways to contest hostile environment policies in cities today?

This webinar presents two forthcoming books that grapple with these questions: Rachel Humphris’ Making Sanctuary Cities (Stanford University Press) and Jacqui Broadhead’s Welcoming Cities (University of Bristol Press). They will be discussed by Rupinder Parhar, Head of Equalities, Greater London Authority. The session will be chaired by Ben Gidley.

This event is organised by the Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment (SSAHE). It is free to attend, but prior registration is required. If you are interested in joining, please register here.

Between Sound and Silence: Avraamov's Symphony of Sirens in Baku (1922). Monday, 28 April 2025, 18h-20:45h GMT+1.

The QMUL Centre for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CEREES) welcomes you to attend a presentation of Arseny Avraamov’s ‘Symphony of Sirens in Baku’ (1922) on Monday 28^th April 2025, 18h–20:45h. Please see below for more details:

'Many of us are familiar with the city symphony films of the 1920s and 30s. We have seen or even taught films such as Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City or Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera in classes on the avant-garde, urbanism, and modernism. As we know, these silent films organize the visual elements of urban experience according to musical principles such as rhythm, intervals, scales, harmony, dissonance, and counterpoint. But what if we look — or, rather, listen — past the musical analogy to the sounds of ostensibly silent city symphony films? Then we will perceive something different. Rather than seeing organizational structures, we will hear the sounds of cars, trams, pedestrians, machines, voices, and musical instruments. This talk examines this under explored sonic legacy of the city symphony in terms of non-cinematic works, specifically Arseny Avraamov’s Symphony of Sirens. The Symphony of Sirens (1922) is not a film but rather a mass spectacle. Performed live in Baku, Azerbaijan, it attempted to re-sound the October Revolution through the city’s oil-producing infrastructure on November 7th, 1922. The mass spectacle, I argue, is part of a tendency to treat city space as a sonic medium. It reveals the sonic and ideological qualities of urban networks as channels for waging war, extracting resources, and colonizing space.'

The presentation will be led by Daniel Schwartz, Associate Professor of Russian and German Cinemas at McGill University, and it will be followed by a drinks reception. 

This event is free to attend, but prior registration is required. If you are interested in joining, please register here.

Past Events

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

•  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'

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

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

 2^nd 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