91��ɫ

CITY Institute Graduate Student Symposium: The City in the Age of the Polycrisis

Date: February 27, 2026
Time: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm EST
Location: Room 305, , 91��ɫ |
Submissions Deadline: January 30, 2026 at 11:59 pm EST |

The general theme of this interdisciplinary event is the “polycrisis”, that is, a crisis predicated on the convergence of social, cultural, environmental, economic and political upheavals.  With the emergence of the polycrisis, cities around the world today, both in the Global South and Global North, are contending with a set of unprecedented and particularly vexing challenges. The nature of these challenges are varied and cut across all sectors in ways that directly and/or indirectly affect many aspects of the contemporary city.  We see this for example, in how global climate change is connected to issues of population displacement and migration, which in turn are connected to xenophobic reactions and economic scapegoating that, in part, has contributed to the concerning rise in populist and authoritarian reactions in cities around the world today.

Beyond the political implications of the polycrisis for cities (often defined in terms of threats to democracy), the polycrisis has implications for many other sectors of the city,  as seen for instance in the “housing crisis”, the “financial and economic crisis”, the pandemic and various health crises (including the opioid crisis, the mental health crisis, and the inaccessibility to health care), the “environmental crisis”, the “infrastructure crisis”, the “cultural wars”, and numerous “humanitarian crises” at various sites around the world (e.g. Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, etc).

This graduate student symposium will bring into dialogue and discussion the many different dimensions of the polycrisis and the implications these have for cities based on (but not limited to), the following sorts of guiding questions:

• How can we approach and analyze the polycrisis?
• How do we identify and critically analyze the impacts and effects of the polycrisis on different aspects of the urban, including: the political, cultural, social, and environmental?
• What are some of the responses, actions and policies that cities can adopt to address different aspects of the polycrisis?
• What does the polycrisis mean for the future of the city – politically, socially, economically, culturally?
• How does the polycrisis impact every day urban life and lived experiences in the city?

This symposium offers 91��ɫ’s graduate students an excellent opportunity to present their research in a supportive academic environment and engage with other students and early career scholars from a range of disciplines.