Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema at Columbia University

On April 9, 2019, Mayor Halsema gave remarks on "Imagined Urban Communities," followed by a discussion with Saskia Sassen, the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia, and a question and answer session with the audience.

The lecture further developed a 2016 essay Femke Halsema wrote, titled “Power and Imagination.” In this essay she described the current dominance of cost-driven technocratic political dispensations coming at the expense of imagination and idealism. She argued that imagination and hope are powerful forces in society, driving participation and activism, and these qualities must be reclaimed as parts of our civic imagination.

In her speech at Columbia University, she explored this question now as the mayor of an open and diverse city. How can cities form imagined communities? How might a common narrative appeal to citizens of global cities, and how can concepts of community converge with individual freedoms?

Welcome Remarks by Maya Tolstoy, Interim Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, & Professor of Earth and Environment Sciences, Columbia University.

Moderated by Ido de Haan, Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professor, Columbia University & Professor of Political History, Utrecht University.

Event sponsored by the Studies of the Dutch-Speaking World at Columbia University, the European Institute, and Columbia World Projects.

Click here for more photos from the event: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmApQzh6