The Stranger and the City - Research Seminar

The Stranger and the City 

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities"Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else."

Organized by Babel – Sponsored by CHI – Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College www.babelcities.org

“It is illuminating that the Chinese symbol for ‘crisis’ includes the symbol for both ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. The former has been much discussed, but the latter largely ignored.” – Janice Perlman, Author of Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge

Originally, this seminar was established to explore how the rapidly urbanizing, technology‐based societies of today present both risks to, and opportunities for establishing “home” and social connections. Now, amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, with students and professionals working from home, “shelter in place” orders in some communities and social distancing advised for everyone, our concepts of…