You can listen to the audio recording of my New Developments in Theory lecture at the University of Basel, ‘Geopolitics, Geopower, Geometrics’, here. The introduction is by Ridvan Askin.
I should say that this is very similar to lectures previously given in Waterloo, Canada, Zurich and Groningen. The differences are minor. The audio/video of some of those earlier versions are available here.
Peter J Taylor’s major book Extraordinary Cities is now available in paperback. What following is the official blurb, but the endorsements on the webpage are worth a read too.
Accepting that cities are extraordinary, this book provides an original city-centred narrative of human creativity, past, present and future.
In this innovative, ambitious and wide-ranging book, Peter Taylor demonstrates that cities are the epicenters of human advancement. In exploring cities as sites through which economies flourish, by harnessing the creative potential of myriad communication networks, the author considers cities from varying temporal and spatial perspectives. Four stories of cities are told: the origins of city networks; the domination of cities by world-empires; the genesis of a singular modern creative interval in which innovation culminates in today’s globalised cities; and finally, the need for cities to act as centres for human creativity to produce a more resilient global society in the current crisis century.
Providing a long-term view through which to consider the role of cities in attending to incipient crises of the twenty-first century, this closely argued thesis will prove essential for students and scholars of urban studies, geography and sociology, and all those with a professional interest in, or personal fascination for, cities.
Thanks to David Murakami Wood for the alert.
Rachael Squire discusses the Warwick workshop held last week. We’re hoping to post the audio recording of Alex Jeffrey’s talk and the closing roundtable on the department blog later this week.
Die Zeit has a powerful piece discussing the involvement of the Heidegger family in the production of the Gesamtausgabe, the collected edition of his works. Theodore Kisiel has long called the editorial practices an ‘international scandal of scholarship‘, but this suggests the problems run much deeper.
I am one of four featured academics in a piece in Geographical Magazine on ‘The Winter of Middle East discontent’ – adding a territorial perspective to issues. I relate the challenges to boundaries by Islamic State to what is happening in Nigeria with Boko Haram. This was a somewhat different experience – I was interviewed on a very bad skype connection, and then the reporter wrote up the text appearing as if it was written by me, when it’s really his take on my ideas. I can’t help but think it would have been easier if I’d be asked to write 300 words myself.
I expand on these parallels in a (previously mentioned) piece on the Geographical Directions blog, which itself relates to the article on “The geopolitics of Boko Haram and Nigeria’s ‘war on terror’”. My department rounds up these three pieces here.
While the article was accepted for publication in August, the interview and the blog piece are more recent. I also discussed these themes in more detail in my Harvard lecture in September – “Iraq and Nigeria: Crises of Territorial Integrity”.
Also on critical-theory.com, a nice discussion of my recent ‘Foucault, Subjectivity, Truth’ lecture at Nottingham Contemporary gallery. I’m pleased, but surprised, by the nearly 5,000 views this lecture has had on youtube.
Critical-Theory has a list of eleven interesting books that came out in November.
Michel’s Ricoeur and the Post-Structuralists, in recompense for review work; and three books in the excellent Interventions series, from one of the editors, Nick Vaughan-Williams.
Derek Gregory comments on Peter Adey and Ben Anderson’s work on emergencies.
I’ve been catching up on a stream of publications by Pete Adeyand Ben Anderson on emergencies, including ‘Affect and security: exercising emergency in UK “civil contingencies”‘, Society & Space 29(6) (2011) 1092-1109; ‘Anticipating emergencies: Technologies of preparedness and the matter of security’, Security dialogue 43 (2) (2012) 99-117; and ‘Governing events and life: “Emergency” in UK Civil Contingencies’, Political Geography 31 (1) (2012) 24-33.
This has been prompted by a continuing conversation with Theo Price about a series of political/artistic interventions under the rubric of COBRA RES, in which he’s invited me to take part. COBRA, as many readers will know, is
the British Government’s emergency response committee set up to respond to a national or regional crisis. Standing for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A [below], the COBRA Committee comes together in moments of perceived crisis under the chairmanship of either the Prime Minister or the…
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