Man smiling.
The
Department of Sociology
is proud to present, Dr. Ali Modarres, on Monday, September 28, 2015 for two different speaking engagements.




Dr. Modarres will speak in Argyros 209B at 12:30 p.m. in a lecture titled
, Urban Transformation and the Politics of Space in the Middle East
. Bring your lunches and join us for this exciting event!

About his talk:

Cities in the Middle East are byproducts of centuries of political, economic, and cultural processes. While dynastic shifts moved the center of power from one city and region to another, mercantile relationships gave cities, particularly those on the Silk Road and Spice Road, the underlying economic power to survive these shifts and prosper across centuries. The dismantling of these relationships in the last three centuries has done much to undo this survival power. By examining the urban geography of selected cities, we can uncover the impact of modernization and what it means to their residents.

Later that afternoon, Dr. Modarres will be giving a class lecture titled,
The Evolution of Middle Easter Cities and the Silk Road
in Beckman Hall 107 at 4 p.m.

Both of these events are free and open to the public.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Ali Modarres is the Director of Urban Studies at University of Washington Tacoma. He is the editor of
Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning
and serves on a number of research and policy advisory boards. Dr. Modarres earned his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Arizona and holds master and bachelor degrees in landscape architecture from the same institution. He specializes in urban geography and his primary research and publication interests are socio-spatial urban dynamics and the political economy of urban design. He has published in the areas of immigration, race and ethnicity in American cities, social geography, transportation planning, environmental equity, urban development and public policy. Some of his recent articles have appeared in the
Journal of Urban Affairs, Cities, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
, and
Anthropology of the Middle East.