Progressive Geographies

Liz Morrish discusses some new ways the Conservative government will seek to assess and rank universities. ‘Learning gain’ is about to be ‘a thing’.

It is just over two weeks after the General Election, and our thoughts turn to the prospect of more cuts in public spending, a new leader for the Labour Party, some uncertainty over Brexit and the referendum on EU membership, and, post UKIP, a somewhat muted dialogue over immigration. But what lies in the future for higher education? Have you been paying selective attention over the months leading up to the election? A tuition fee cut may have lodged in your memory, but that was Labour Party policy, and we can forget that now. What does a Conservative government have planned for universities? We know that abolition of the cap on student numbers was already in the offing, as was a national postgraduate loan system for…

Political Geography is seeking two new associate editors, to start in January 2016.

Political Geography operates in a decentralized manner with each member of the editorial team having full responsibility for her or his queue. Therefore, after being assigned an article, associate editors are responsible for all aspects of manuscript processing, including selecting and recruiting referees, managing the revision process, making acceptance decisions, and, when necessary, facilitating communication between authors and Elsevier production and publishing staff. Typically, each associate editor will process between 40 and 50 articles per year, with about half of these going to publication. As a member of the editorial team, each associate editor will also be expected to work with other team members to chart the journal’s future direction as well as the conceptualization and organization of special issues, conference-based plenary lectures, and other activities that advance the journal’s standing and facilitate the publication and promotion…

I have just uploaded a paper on Michel Serres to academia.edu. Here is the abstract:

This is an expanded version of a paper originally given at the English and Theatre Studies research seminar at Melbourne University in May 2015, and it retains its oral tone. My intention both for the original paper and for this expanded version is to provide a first introduction to the work and thought of Michel Serres. I discuss how Serres’s work has been received in the French-speaking and English-speaking worlds to date, briefly highlight the different areas in which his thought is making a decisive contribution today, and then offer reflections on what it is that characterises his writing as a whole. I finish by examining some of his recent thought in more detail, specifically his recent elaboration of an econarratology around the idea of the “Great Story” of the universe, opening the way, for…

In July I’m thrilled to be speaking at Reconfiguring Global Space: the geography, politics and ethics of drone war, to be held at Indiana University – Bloomington, 14-17 July.

The other speakers – which explains why I’m thrilled to be going – include Medea Benjamin, Mark Neocleous, Priya Satia and Madiha Tahir: people I know only through print, video or e-mail (sometimes all three!) and it will be good to meet them in non-digital form.  Which, given the subject of the conference, is an all too appropriate wish….

There are lots of other interesting participants too: the outline program is here, and the organizers hope to have full details available at the end of this month.