Reimagining the More-Than-Human City from a global perspective: in dialogue with Jamie Wang, Matthew Gandy and Donna Houston

Moderators: Matthias Schumann and Xiaojie Chang

Time: December 4, 2024, 10am CET, 5pm HKT, 8pm AEDT

Using an interdisciplinary urban environmental humanities approach, Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore critically examines the multifaceted environmental issues in Singapore through a more-than-human lens, calling for new ways to think of and story cities. Widely considered a model for the future of urbanism and an emblematic new world city, Singapore’s mode of urban sustainability, Wang contends, has both broad and deep implications for cities around the world that are eager to become greener and more sustainable. Drawing on field research, this book explores distinct and intrarelated urban imaginaries situated in various sites, from the futuristic, authoritarian Supertree Grove to a velocity-charged urban transportation system, and to nature reserves and the cemeteries, where graves and memories continue to be exhumed and erased to make way for development. What kinds of sustainable futures are we calling forth, and at what and whose expense? Amid the escalating effects of climate change and intense urbanisation, the book ultimately argues that urban imaginings must create space for a more relational understanding of urban environments.

The digital version of the book can be found here.

Following the introduction of the book, Jamie Wang will be in dialogue with Matthew Gandy and Donna Houston to discuss, further probe and add new perspectives to various themes of the book, from controlled versus spontaneous urban natures to emerging forms of eco-modernised green infrastructure, and to researching a more-than-human city and urban environmental studies more broadly.

The event is part of the Digital Dialogues series of the project “Worldmaking from a Global Perspective: A Dialogue with China,” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (https://www.worldmaking-china.org/). It is moderated by Matthias Schumann and Chang Xiaojie and will conclude with an open Q&A session with the audience.

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Short bios:

Jamie Wang is an urban environmental humanities scholar and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong. She is author of Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore, and editor at the journal Feminist Review. Her current writing and thinking examines sustainable urban-making, technological imaginaries, and multi-modal environmental narratives in the context of climate change and environmental injustice.

Matthew Gandy is a cultural, urban, and environmental geographer with particular interests in landscape, infrastructure, and more recently biodiversity. The historical scope of his work extends from the middle decades of the nineteenth century to the recent past. His research ranges from aspects of environmental history, including epidemiology, to contemporary intersections between nature and culture including the visual arts.

Donna Houston is an urban and cultural geographer. Her research focuses on environmental justice in climate-changing worlds; geographies of extinction, and urban planning in more-than-human cities.