10.10.2016

#1: Andrew Herscher (Stanford University / University of Michigan)

Vortrag am 10. Oktober 2016 um 19.00 Uhr im HS L, Lessingstraße 25/1.OG, 8010 Graz Andrew Herscher (Stanford University / University of Michigan): "Black and Blight"

“Black homes matter”: in the summer of 2015, this affirmation was painted on a fence erected by community members and volunteers from Detroit Eviction Defense next to a house whose owner was facing eviction amidst Detroit’s ongoing campaign of evictions, foreclosures, and other forms of displacement. What can architectural history offer to a reading of this claim? I explore the intersection of race, space, and housing in the American city by focusing on “blight”: a term that has been deployed to characterize urban difference in the American city from the early 20th century into the present. Posed as “blight,” the uneven urban development endemic to capitalist urbanism was refracted through white supremacist politics and framed as a problem that could be solved by city planning, zoning, urban renewal, and other technical means. In so doing, studies of and actions against “blight” masked contradictions in capitalist urbanism and spatialized race in uneven urban development.

Free admission – the lecture will be introduced by Daniel Gethmann of the Institute of Architectural Theory, Art History and Cultural Studies.