Post #53

Common Places, Uncommon Memories: POV of an urban sociologist, Olga Sezneva After conflict and war come resettling and rebuilding. Stones are assembled anew, and new futures are imagined. But what about the past? In her talk Olga Sezneva discusses the role cities and their architecture play in the formation and de-formation of our collective memories. She draws examples from cities of North America and South-East Asia, Western and Central Europe, and focuses in particular on the city of Kaliningrad. Annexed from Germany at the end of the WWII, it has been considered a “strategic trophy,” a “reparation,” and a “European heritage”. What is at the heart of such namings, and what do they tell us about the geopolitical situation of today? Olga Sezneva is an urban sociologist and an author with a broad interest in cities, migration and material culture. She received her doctorate from New York University in 2005 and joined the University of Amsterdam in 2010. Olga’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as Environment and Planning, Critical Historical Studies and Journal of Urban Design, and her fiction stories appeared in EuropeNow, Litro Magazine USA, and The Alfa Female Society. Friday August 26, 19:00, The Apollo Cinema, 135 Aghmashenebeli Ave. Entrance – any donation. With the streams and recordings of our lectures we support the project Helping to Leave: helpingtoleave.org/en Subscribe to the lecture program We Must Believe in Spring: instagram.com/wemustbelieveinspring t.me/wemustbelieveinspring youtube.com/channel/UCj3lSHtg1YLbHOlPnzOYIrg