Noxious New York: Race, Class and Garbage

Drawing on her award-winning book Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice, Julie Sze will examine the link between race, class and garbage with a focus on how culturally and politically disenfranchised communities re-work long-standing conflations between polluted places and peoples. Throughout NYC’s history, but particularly in the second half of the 20th Century, community organizations have worked through social movements and policy-making to improve the physical landscape and public health in their neighborhoods. The talk will address case studies around NYC garbage politics in the 1980s and 1990s, but looks at older historical moments, and outside the city.

This lecture is part of our “Garbage and the City” series, produced in collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York and ARCHIVE Global and supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities.

Free, advanced registration required.