Professor Sharon Zukin's talk will describe how, in cities across the world, the everyday spaces of local shopping streets are undergoing dramatic transformations.  Globalization brings new products and people, while different types of gentrification reshape the street's aesthetics and atmosphere.  How do we "read" these changes?  Do they destroy the sense of the "local" to make every street, in every city, more alike?

Professor Zukin is the author of a number of books on cities, culture and consumer culture, and urban, cultural and economic change.  She received the Lynd Award for Career Achievement in urban sociology from the American Sociological Association, and the C. Wright Mills Book Award for Landscapes of Power.  You can learn more about her work here: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=420

Presented by the Program on Urban Studies and co-sponsored by the Anthropology Department, Center for East Asian Studies, Center on Poverty and Inequality, The Europe Center, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Sociology Department, Stanford in Government and Urban Beyond Measure.

This lecture is the first in a new series co-sponsored by The Europe Center and the Stanford Archaeology Center on how modern Europe has been shaped by the concepts, materials and ideology of its past inhabitants.

This first speaker highlights both the ecological and socio-political ramifications of conquest.  Based on work undertaken in Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, Dr. Aleksander Pluskowski discusses the way that relationships created during one of the most dynamic epochs of European history, the period of crusading, have left a profound legacy for modern Europe.  The process of crusading resulted in massively modified landscapes and catalyzed population reconfiguration at the frontiers of Europe, during the period of Christian expansion.  The archaeo-historical backdrop to these events is presented, along with a discussion of how Europe and the relationship Europe has with non-Christian societies, was permanently altered.

Aleksander Pluskowski's research focuses on frontier societies, colonization and ecological diversity in medieval Europe.  He is primarily concerned with the nuanced relationships between ecology and culture, moving towards a complete integration of environmental and social archaeology, history and art history.  His ultimate aim is to further a holistic understanding of this formative period of European society, contributing to the management of cultural and ecological heritage today.  His other interests include cult praxis in the past and the construction of religious identities.