2022 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Dr. Kalpana Wilson: Revisiting Gender and Development in a Time of Fascisms.

Dr. Kalpana Wilson is a Lecturer in the Geography Department at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research explores questions of race/gender, labour, imperialism, fascism and reproductive rights and justice, with a particular focus on South Asia and its diasporas. She is the author of Race, Racism and Development: Interrogating History, Discourse and Practice (Zed Books, 2012) and co-editor of Gender, Agency and Coercion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She has written widely on themes of international development, revolutionary social movements and reproductive justice. She is a founder member of the campaigning organization South Asia Solidarity Group.
Annual Al Berry Lectures
2020 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Prof. Ruth Oniang'o: Is Three Meals a Day Feasible for Everyone? (Sep 30, 2020)
2019 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Dr. Rami Zurayk: Food, Farming and War: The Remains of the Spring (Sep 25, 2019)
The Centre for Critical Development Studies hosted the annual Al Berry lecture on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at the University of Toronto Scarborough. The aim of the lecture was to provide students with an opportunity to learn about the food, agriculture, conflict and development in the Arab World and explore the region’s political economy/ecology of food and its evolution since the “Arab Spring. The Centre hosted a pre-lecture reception with the speaker, faculty, alumni, and current International Development Studies 5th year Co-op students. The 5th year IDS Co-op Students had the opportunity to engage and talk about their placement experiences with Prof. Rami Zurayk, IDS alumni and faculty. This year’s Al Berry lecture was delivered by Prof. Rami Zurayk, who is a professor at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut and chairperson of the department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management.
Dr. Rami Zurayk is a professor at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut and chairperson of the department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the Committee of World Food Security (CFS), and a commissioner on the EAT-Lancet commission on sustainable diets from sustainable food systems. He is a founding member of the Arab Food Sovereignty Network, an advisory board member of SEAL (Social and Economic Action for Lebanon) and an advisory board member for the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development. He has worked and written extensively on the Arab World, focusing on the political ecology of Arab food security and its linkages with the agrarian question. His latest work on the subject includes: Crisis and Conflict in Agriculture (CABI, 2018), The Agrarian Roots of the Arab Uprisings (with Anne Gough, Cambridge, 2014); Control Food, Control People: The Struggle for Food Security in Gaza (with Anne Gough, IPS, 2013) Food, Farming and Freedom: Sowing the Arab Spring (Just World Books, 2011). He obtained his BSc and MSc from the American University of Beirut and his DPhil from Oxford University.
2018 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Prof. Jeremy Adelman: Development or Justice? A Global History (Sep 26, 2018)
In this lecture, titled “Development or Justice? A Global History,” Prof. Jeremy Adelman takes a long, global view of development: what it has meant and speculations on what’s left in the age of climate change, uncertainty, and inequality.
About the Speaker:
Jeremy Adelman is the Henry Lea Professor of History and the Director of the Global History Lab at Princeton University. He is the author of 3 books, five edited volumes and countless articles that intersect the fields of Latin American history, global history, and development history. His most recent books include Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (2013) is a chronicle of one of the 20th Century’s most original development thinkers; and, as a coauthor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart (4th edition, 2014), a history of the world from the beginning of humankind to the present.
2017 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Prof. Haroon Akram-Lodhi: Feeding the Future: Understanding the Contemporary Food Crisis (2017)
2016 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Prof. Tania Murray Li: Capitalism from Above and Below (Oct 19, 2016)
Podcast of 2015 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Dr. Vijay Prashad: Time of the Popular Front: How to React to the Endless Neoliberal Present (Oct 21, 2015)
Dr. Vijay Prashad is a professor of International Studies at Trinity College, Connecticut. He is a prolific and widely read critical historian of the ‘Third World’ and ‘Global South’ and author of over seventeen books. Some of his notable work includes Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting and Karma of Brown Folk, both of which were chosen by New York's Village Voice as among the best books. A more in depth detailing of his work can be found here: http://internet2.trincoll.edu/FacProfiles/Default.aspx?fid=1000767
Podcast of 2013 Annual Al Berry Lecture by Dr. Gita Sen: Health & Human Rights In The Post 2015 Development (Oct 22, 2013)
Dr. Gita Sen is a retired professor of public policy at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India, and adjunct professor of global health and population at Harvard University. Sen is widely known for her analysis and activism on gender and development, women’s human rights, reproductive and sexual health, and the equity dimensions of health. She is currently the General Coordinator of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era. To learn more about Gita and her work please visit http://icpdtaskforce.org/member/gita-sen/Opens an external site in a new window.