My visit to the University of Kentucky for the Committee on Social Theory is part of a class on ‘Security’. The idea is that the four visiting speakers give public lectures and then have a discussion session with the students taking the class. Class sessions before and after our visits link to the week we are actually present. These are the assigned readings for the block on ‘Security and Geopolitical Space’ that Sue Roberts is leading, which links to my lecture. Sue and I chose the reading around three blocks – basically ‘Territory’; ‘Up’; and ‘Down’ which link to the idea of ‘volume’ I will be lecturing on.

Unit 3: Security and Geopolitical Space (Roberts)

March 23

Readings

1. Crampton, Jeremy (2010) “Cartographic calculations of territory”, Progress in Human Geography, Vol 35, No 1, pp. 92-103.
2. Elden, Stuart (2010) “Land, terrain, territory,” Progress in Human Geography Vol 34 No 6, pp. 799-817. See also the exchange between Elden and Antonsich in Vol 35  No 3, pp. 422-29.
3. Elden, Stuart (2009) Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. xi-xxxii.
4. Shah, Nisha (2012) “The Territorial Trap of the Territorial Trap: Global Transformation and the Problem of the State’s Two Territories”, International Political Sociology, forthcoming, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2011.00144.x/full

March 30

Public Lecture by Stuart Elden: “Secure the Volume: Vertical Geopolitics and the Depth of Power”

Readings

1. Gregory, Derek (2011) “Lines of Descent”  Open Democracy, http://www.opendemocracy.net/derek-gregory/lines-of-descent
2. Graham, Stephen (2004) “Vertical Geopolitics: Baghdad and After,” Antipode Vol 36 No 1, pp. 12-23. Graham’s “Vertigo: for a vertical turn in critical urban social science” podcast is available at: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2010/12/steve-graham-%E2%80%93-vertigo-for-a-vertical-turn-in-critical-urban-social-science/)
3. Weizmann, E (2007) Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, London: Verso, pp. 1-16. See also his earlier The politics of verticality at http://www.opendemocracy.net/ecology-politicsverticality/article_801.jsp This is a sequence of 11 short pieces – numbers 1-4 are especially useful.
4. Adey, Peter (2010) “Vertical Security in the Megacity”, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol 27, No 6, pp. 51-67. Adey also has a podcast “Areal Life: space, substance and ‘being-in-the-air”, available at http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2010/12/pete-adey-areal-life-space-substance-and-being-in-the-air/

April 6

Readings

1. Bennett L, (2011) “Bunkerology—a case study in the theory and practice of urban exploration” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Vol 29 No 3, pp. 421-434. See also the exchange between Bennett and Garrett on the www.societyandspace.com open site: http://societyandspace.com/2011/06/10/shallow-excavation-a-response-to-bunkerology-by-bradley-l-garrett/ and http://societyandspace.com/2011/06/10/exploring-the-bunker-a-response-by-luke-bennett-to-%e2%80%98shallow-excavation%e2%80%99/
2. Garrett, Bradley L. (2010) “Urban explorers: quests for myth, mystery and meaning,” Geography Compass, Vol 4, pp. 1448-1461; along with the linked video article http://vimeo.com/5366045
3. Gandy, Matt  (2003) Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City, Cambridge: MIT Press, Chapter 1: “Water, Space and Power”.
4. Marvin, Simon and Medd, Will “Clogged Cities: Sclerotic Infrastructure”, in Stephen Graham (ed.) Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructure Fails, New York: Routledge, pp. 85-96. (an earlier version appeared in Environment and Planning A, Vol 28 No 2, 2006, pp. 313-24)