Join us in celebrating Prof. Martin Murray’s most recent book, “The Urbanism of Exception.” He will be speaking informally about the book, followed by Q&A, and there will be the opportunity to purchase signed copies of the book. Refreshments will be served.

The Urbanism of Exception: The Dynamics of Global City Building in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
This book challenges the conventional (modernist-inspired) understanding of urbanization as a universal process tied to the ideal-typical model of the modern metropolis with its origins in the grand Western experience of city-building. At the start of the twenty-first century, the familiar idea of the 'city' - or 'urbanism' as we know it - has experienced such profound mutations in both structure and form that the customary epistemological categories and prevailing conceptual frameworks that predominate in conventional urban theory are no longer capable of explaining the evolving patterns of city-making. Global urbanism has increasingly taken shape as vast, distended city-regions, where urbanizing landscapes are increasingly fragmented into discontinuous assemblages of enclosed enclaves characterized by global connectivity and concentrated wealth, on the one side, and distressed zones of neglect and impoverishment, on the other. These emergent patterns of what might be called enclave urbanism have gone hand-in-hand with the new modes of urban governance, where the crystallization of privatized regulatory regimes has effectively shielded wealthy enclaves from public oversight and interference.

Brief Bio: Professor Martin Murray began his academic career as sociologist with a strong foundation in urban geography. His current research engages the fields of urban studies and planning, global urbanism, cultural geography, distressed urbanism, development, historical sociology, and African studies. In addition to six books and three co-edited volumes, he has produced close to seventy journal articles and book chapters that focus on diverse geographical areas of the world at different historical periods. After his first book on French colonialism in Indochina (University of California Press), Professor Murray pursued a deep and abiding interest in the politics of South Africa. He has published two books from an eventual trilogy on Johannesburg: Taming the Disorderly City: The Spatial Landscape of Johannesburg after Aparthreid (Cornell University Press, 2008); City of Extremes: The Spatial Landscape of Johannesburg (Duke University Press, 22011); and Panic City: Crime, Private Security, and Extended Security Networks in Johannesburg (under review). He has also published Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).