25th March 2019 was our last scheduled cluster meeting of the semester. We were absolutely delighted to welcome Joanne Sayner to talk about her recent work on culture, centenaries and difficult pasts that she is doing in collaboration with Jenny Kidd (Cardiff). Their research has looked closely at the poppy exhibition which has toured the UK for the centenary of WWI, and in our session raised some fascinating and difficult questions about cultural institutions and commemoration, and how people might be able to think about what the poppy means beyond ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig).

Joanne is Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Heritage Studies here at Newcastle. She works on the politics of remembering in contemporary culture. With our own Anselma Gallinat and also Sarah Jones (Birmingham), she is currently Co-I on the AHRC project ‘Knowing the Secret Police: Secrecy and Knowledge in East German Society.’

It was great to welcome Prof. Paul Chatterton for the Sociology Seminar on Weds 27th February 2019. Paul was the cluster’s invited speaker this semester.

As well as being Professor of Urban Futures and Director of the Sustainable Cities Group at the University of Leeds, Paul is a writer, researcher and campaigner. He is co-founder and resident of the award-winning low impact housing co-operative Lilac and helped set up Leeds Community Homes to help promote community-led housing.

In his new book Unlocking Sustainable Cities and in the talk Paul presents a manifesto for real urban change. The book highlights how cities are locked into unsustainable and damaging practices, and how exciting new routes can be unlocked for real change. Across the world, city innovators are putting real sustainability into practice – from transforming abandoned public spaces and setting up community co-operatives, to rewilding urban nature and powering up civic energy.

The talk set out a number of proposals for immediate radical possibilities for more sustainable cities. A lively discussion afterwards explored the scope for change in a world of infrastructural lock-in and entrenched capitalist power and culture – and the ways in which in small ways as teachers and researchers we can contribute to a greener and more just future.