Progressive Geographies

The lecture was yesterday, and seemed to be well received. It was a busy day – an interview with the graduate student journal disClosure, a lunch with the faculty teaching the Social Theory seminar, the lecture itself, followed by questions, the Social Theory seminar and lots more discussion, followed by a reception and a meal. Because the lecture was linked to the seminar, and to three sets of readings – the week before I came, this week, and next – I tried to make sure it referenced all the reading and spoke to the general concerns of the seminar; but the audience was larger than just the seminar so I tried to pitch it more broadly too. It pretty much covered the topics I outlined a few days back. The audience comments – at least, those I heard – seemed to suggest the balance was about right. The talk had far more images than I usually use, with lots of my photographs from Israel/Palestine to illustrate the argument, plus several pictures and diagrams from Paul Virilio’s books Bunker Archaeology and The Function of the Oblique, so it was quite well practiced to make sure things linked up properly. A talk like that is always more dependent on technology working to order, but all went well. (The talk was videoed and should be posted online.) The discussion after the talk and in the seminar was wide ranging and interesting – it seemed to spark some ideas and make some good connections. Many thanks to Sue Roberts, Masamichi Inoue, Lisa Cliggett, Andy Doolen and Suzanne Pucci for the invitation and leading the seminar. Sue gave me a far-too-generous introduction to the talk. And I was really impressed with the graduate students – both those doing the seminar, which is interdisciplinary and had students from Geography, English, Anthropology and other discplines, and the Geography graduate students I met over lunch on Friday.

And as well as the hospitality of the first days I’ve already mentioned, I also got to have dinner with Anna Secor and Matthew Wilson, and Jeremy Crampton and Chris Oliver. One day left here – a tour of historic downtown this morning and a pot luck dinner and the Wildcats final four game tonight…