Event Description
Today, we are witness to an emergent conjuncture in speculative urbanism in which dozens of spaces are being carved out of cities, states, and countries worldwide by Silicon Valley investors with visions of creating exclusive enclaves for their peers. Not only do these new cities maintain technofeudal and increasingly technofascistic fantasies, but many mobilize racial capitalist narratives rendered about “doomed” San Francisco, where many investors bear roots. This talk questions what it means that these projects are based upon visions of seceding from the state and its doomed cities, but at the same time, many of their funders have attempted to co-opt the state apparatus itself, indexing imperial anxieties endemic to late-stage capitalism and its increasingly fascistic tendencies. McElroy also traces how many of these technofeudal fever dreams end up failing in imperial sandboxes of experimentation, suggesting that failure is an important node and analytic in provincializing the sensationalist narratives cast by today’s technocapitalists
Event Speaker
Erin McElroy, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington
Event Information
Open to Columbia University ID holders; registration required. For more information, please visit the event webpage. Please visit the Heyman’s Center website for directions.
Hosted by the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.
