Xuefei Ren is a comparative urbanist who studies urban governance and the built environment in comparative perspective. She is the author of three award-winning books: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution (Princeton University Press, 2020), Urban China (Polity, 2013), and Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University of Chicago Press, 2011). She is a Public Intellectual Fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a fellow in the Humanity’s Urban Future program of Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). She has served as a co-editor for Journal of Urban Affairs, City and Community, and on the editorial board of International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Her research has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Andrew Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, Urban Studies Foundation, CIFAR, and Swiss National Science Foundation.

Prof. Xuefei Ren (Department of Sociology, Michigan State University) will present her research on rethinking Southern urbanism from the periphery, offering reflections about reconceptualising the new urban political economy through the lens of geopolitics, climate change, and peripheral regions.

The seminar will include a free sandwich and be followed by cake and coffee in the kitchen on the 2ndfloor.

Mandatory registration: here