***Comments now closed; Joel and Geoff's reply is available here. Thanks to all who contributed.***

A 'symposium', of course, is a party - 'a convivial meeting for drinking, conversation, and intellectual entertainment', as the OED puts it. And geographers, it seems, aren't good at parties. Peter Gould (1985: 4) opened his The Geographer at Work with a description of a cocktail party where he was asked the dreaded question 'And what do…