Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

This presentation reflects upon my three years heading the creative arm of the Mexico City
government, reporting to the Mayor. It focuses on our need to keep on revising our modernist view
of our city, especially when thinking of the role of government in contemporary society; about the
importance of inventing new political languages and urban forms: a creative ethos beyond arts and
culture and let loose into the city; other disciplines and conceptual frameworks that could (and
should) inform city-making; new civic skills and actors that are necessary if we are to take seriously
the new governance paradigms and jargon (co-creation, public participation, place making, urban
commons etc) and reflections of whet we are calling “legible policy”, very much informed by
insights from cultural studies. I will also exemplify with practical “experiments” and case-studies
from Mexico City, dealing with things such as mobility and health, and why it has been important
for the Lab to have many artists and creative-types working hand in hand with policy experts to
figure out different ways to solve the challenges of a megalopolis.
Lawrence Grossberg (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Lawrence Grossberg is the Morris Davis
Distinguished Professor of Communication and Cultural Studies, at the University of North Carolina Chapel
Hill. His books include Caught in the Crossfire, Cultural Studies in the Future Tense and We All Want to
Change the World, as well as such co-edited books as Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Cultural
Studies, Without Guarantees: Essays in Honor of Stuart Hall, and New Keywords. His work has been
translated into over a dozen languages. He has edited the international journal Cultural Studies for over
twenty-five years. He has written about cultural studies, continental philosophy and cultural theory,
popular music and politics, the state of youth/youth culture, U.S. political culture (new conservatisms and
capitalisms, and progressive opposition), value theory, and multiple modernities. He is currently
completing a sympathetic critique of the speculative/ontological turn, and an introduction to westernmodern
philosophy for theorists.
Special Forum:
“Lawrence Grossberg: A Celebration”
Larry Grossberg has exercised a defining influence on the trajectories of cultural studies in his many
and varied roles: as a leading intellectual and theorist; as the long-term editor of Cultural Studies; as
a teacher, supervisor and mentor for many key figures in the field; and in institutional leadership,
including as co-convener (and co-editor) of “Cultural Studies Now and In the Future”, the major
conference which gave cultural studies international visibility, and as one of the founders of the
Cultural Studies Association. On the occasion of his stepping down from the editorship of Cultural
Studies, John Erni, Meaghan Morris and Tony Bennett will engage Larry in a conversation on the
defining features of his contributions to cultural studies.
Ghassan Hage (University of Melbourne), Ghassan Hage is Future Generation Professor of Anthropology
and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne. He has held several visiting professorships including at
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, the American University of Beirut, University of
Copenhagen, Harvard and University of Amsterdam. He is the author of many books and articles dealing
with migration, multiculturalism, nationalism and social and anthropological theory. His books include
White Nation (Routledge 2000), Against Paranoid Nationalism (Pluto Press 2003), Waiting (edited
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