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08 February 11: 2011 AAG Schedule Up

Take a look at the sessions our SG is sponsoring this year at the AAG. While this page has always included session descriptions, contacts, and titles, this year we are also including session times + places, panelists/presenters, and sponsorships. Much more information than last year, and it's way easier to use than the AAG's session search engine. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any design suggestions.

09 July 10: Mini-Conference on Critical Geography

Call for papers and panel sessions:
17th Annual Mini-Conference on Critical Geography
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, November 5-6, 2010

As in past years, the aim of this two-day conference is to provide an inclusive venue for the broad discussion of themes in critical geography. We continue to welcome interdisciplinary work that examines the geographies of critical social theory and progressive political praxis.

The conference will begin on Friday, November 5, 2010. The opening evening will feature a keynote address by Mona Domosh, who is the Joan P. and Edward J. Foley, Jr. Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College. We also invite conference participants who can arrive earlier in the day to attend a Friday afternoon guest lecture, co-sponsored by the UW-Milwaukee Center for 21st Century Studies and Department of Geography, by Prof. Arun Saldanha of the Department of Geography at the University of Minnesota.

The program on Saturday, November 6 will consist of paper sessions, panels, and round table discussions on topics in critical geography. In recent years, papers and panels have been presented on a broad array of topics, and possible topics for presentation could include the following:

We invite you to submit abstracts or proposals for panels, roundtable discussions, or sessions with alternative formats by the deadline of *August 16, 2010*. Abstracts or proposals should be 250-500 words in length, and we ask that you include a brief bio of each participant with contact information and any titles or affiliations you would like placed in the program. Please send your abstract or proposal to critgeogmilwaukee@gmail.com. If you would like to organize a themed paper session, please let us know - you can then issue your own CFP through appropriate mailing lists.

Further information on the conference, including accommodations, paper sessions, and tours/field trips, will be available at the conference web site, which will be available soon. Please feel free to email the Critical Geography Conference Planning Committee at critgeogmilwaukee@gmail.com with any questions. We look forward to seeing you in the fall!

19 August 09: James Blaut Award Call for Nominations

The Call for Nominations for the 2010 James Blaut Award has been posted here.

18 March 09: Invitation to Informal SCGSG Gathering

The SCGSG will be meeting for a fun, informal get-together Tuesday during the week of the AAG in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, 3/24/09, at about 9:00 pm we will coalesce at the Nine Fine Irishmen Bar in the New York-New York Hotel & Casino. The bar and hotel/casino are located at 3790 Las Vegas Blvd S, AKA on the south side of the "strip".


View Larger Map

Hope to see you there!

18 March 09: SCGSG Business Meeting

The SCGSG business meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 3/25/09 from 11:55-12:50. It will be held in Skybox 211, Riviera Hotel, 2nd Floor. All are invited to attend.

18 March 09: Congratulations to the 2009 Blaut Award Winner

The Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group would like to congratulate Dr. Rich Heyman for being awarded the 2009 James Blaut Award. While all candidates were of the highest quality, Dr. Heyman particularly exemplifies the ideals held by James Blaut, and is most deserving of this honor. He has consistently taken radical positions toward academia, toward community, and toward socialist/critical research. Dr. Heyman has actively engaged unions, gaining support for 80% of the University of Washington's TA's during his time there and establishing affiliation with the United Auto Workers. Since 2007, Rich has been a member of an interdisciplinary Academic Advisory Committee (AAC) working in conjunction with the Workers Defense Project (PDL) on a comprehensive study of working conditions in the construction industry in Austin, carried out by a team composed of PDL members and staff and University of Texas students, both graduate and undergraduate.

Rich Heyman continues James Blaut's tradition of radical thought within academia by working toward abolishing forms of academic hierarchy that tend to subordinate non-tenured faculty. Blaut's example continues through Heyman's commitment to radical pedagogy, activism, and intellectually critical work.

The 4th Annual James Blaut Memorial Lecture will occasion the award. This lecture will be held Tuesday, 3/24/09, from 5:20-7:00 in the Royale Pavilion 5, Riviera Hotel, 1st Floor at the Annual Meeting of the AAG in Las Vegas.

23 December 08: 2009 AAG Sponsored Sessions Updated

The Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group has received all requests for sponsorship, and has compiled the list of those approved.Those approved for sponsorship are listed here in the Sponsored Sessions section of this site.

25 November 08: James Blaut Call for Nominations

The new Call for Nominations for the James Blaut Award has been posted. Please refer here for more information.

12 September 08: New SCGSG Vice President

Please join me in welcoming our new vice president, Jamey Essex. Dr. Essex is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at University of Windsor, and serves as Coordinator of their Environmental Studies Program. His research interests lie broadly within globalization/internationalization, geographies of neoliberalization, and agriculture/food systems. For more information about Jamey, visit his personal web site or his really cool blog.

Welcome, Jamey!

9 September 08: 2009 AAG Call For Papers Now Available

Please visit the CFP section for more information.

20 August 08: The Diverse Suburb: History, Politics, and Prospects

The National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University will hold the "international and interdisciplinary conference" The Diverse Suburb: History, Politics, and Prospects October 22-24 at said University in Hempstead, NY. Abstract submissions will be accepted until January 31, 2009.

Brief summary: The National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra invites academics, activists, and policymakers to an international and interdisciplinary conference that will consider the challenging and emergent phenomenon of suburban diversity. What are the implications of this growing diversity? To what extent is this apparent growth simply a rediscovery of differences long written out of suburban history? How is suburban diversity linked to processes, such as globalization, that operate above and cut across the local scale? Do the changing suburbs present new opportunities for creating a more just and equitable society?

For more information, click here.

18 August 08: 2009 AAG Geographies of Media

Geographies of Media session to be held at this year's AAG meeting in Las Vegas, NV. The deadline for paper submission to this session is October 16 (earlier submissions encouraged).

Brief summary: We are seeking papers that examine geographies of the various forms of media, including cinema, television, the Internet, music, art, advertising, newspapers and magazines, video and animation etc.  These sessions should include contributions to current issues surrounding these media, beginning with constructions of space & place, cultural, society, and identity.

We are hoping to present a wide range of both topic and context and seek participants interested in the geographical implications - social, political, cultural, and economic - that are often contained within the spaces and places of different forms of media. Media extend beyond their original form and so papers should also envision these geographies as part of a broader industrial and political complex in which culture is an economic commodity set within the broader frame of a global and postmodern era, and with the links between these realms and our daily lived experiences, from our cities to streets to living rooms to imaginations. These contexts invite inquiries into the production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption of all types of media and we encourage critical, pedagogical and discursive contributions. We would also welcome inquiries from anyone wishing to act as a discussant in a session.

For more information, contact Jim Craine <jwc53531@csun.edu>, Chris Lukinbeal <christopher.lukinbeal@asu.edu>, or Jason Dittmer <j.dittmer@ucl.ac.uk>

7 August 08: Global Goods: Changing Perspectives on Trade, Human Rights and the Environment

Bradley Wilson, Benjamin Neimark, and Deberati Sen, all of Rutgers University, have organized the Global Goods Workshop to be held April 23-24 at Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ. Advanced Ph.D. candidates, recent Ph.Ds. and junior faculty are invited to submit papers that address the trade of commodities in an international setting. The deadline for paper submission is September 15.

Brief summary: The Global Goods workshop will take place at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Scholars participating in the workshop will be organized into three paper sessions over one day in Spring 2009. These sessions will illustrate the diversity of studies that echo the Global Goods theme and will facilitate peer-review feedback on each presenter's paper with the ultimate purpose of collective publication as a special issue in a social science journal. The workshop will also invite faculty discussants from Rutgers whose expertise in the field will enrich the debate, feedback and dialogue.

For more information, click here.

5 August 08: Annual Cascadia Critical Geographies Mini-Conference

The 3rd Annual Cascadia Critical Geographies Mini-Conference will be held October 25th - 26th at the University of Washington- Tacoma.

Brief summary: The Urban Studies Program at the University of Washington Tacoma will host a third annual mini-conference for critical geographers who live and/or work in the region of Cascadia. As in years past, the emphasis here is to create a friendly, engaging, and fun space for critical geographers to share their work. We welcome papers and panel proposals from across the field of geography (human, physical, G/SIS), and from spatially oriented scholars in other disciplines. The mini-conference is open to both graduate students and faculty members. There is no fee for attending or participating.

For more information, click here.

27 July 08: 15th Annual Mini-Conference on Critical Geography

The 15th Annual Mini-Conference on Critical Geography will be held October 3-5 at Ohio University, Athens, OH. Abstracts will be accepted until August 11th.

Brief summary: This two-and-a-half day conference aims to provide an inclusive venue for the broad discussion of themes in critical geography. While the conference was borne of geography, we welcome all interdisciplinary work that examines the geographies of critical social theory and progressive political praxis. In recent years, papers and panels have been presented on a broad array of topics, and possible topics for presentation could include:
Cities & Citizenship; Gentrification & Urban Struggles; Peace Studies; Political Ecology including the Social Production of the Environment; Contemporary Policy Studies; Interactions between Human and Physical Geographies; Critical Geopolitics; GIS and Society; Post-Colonial Issues; Cultural Politics; Globalization; Marxian Studies; Identity including Race,Class, Gender, Sexuality, (Dis)Ability, Age; CyberSpaces; Institutional Economics; Space, Place, and Power; Emotional Geographies; Local Politics and Geographies; Social Movements; Development; Sustainability; Extreme Geographies; Migration, Transnationalism, & Post-Nationalism; Terrorism; Urban Ecology; Neoliberalism; Counter-mapping.

For more information, click here.

5 May 08: Cinco de Mayo and Karl Marx

In addition to being a holiday celebrating Mexico's defeat of the invading French troops in 1862, it was on this day 190 years ago that one of the most- if not the most- revolutionary thinkers in recent history was born. The 5th of May is the birth date of Karl Marx. While we celebrate a colonial, but cultural, heritage (Cinco de Mayo), we should also recognize this other concurrent holiday.

Click here to read a short article about the "birthday party" Marx received in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Thanks to Clark Akatiff for reminding me about Marx's birthday.

1 May 08: Happy May Day!

Respects and gratitude to the world's workers today. Solidarity!

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), in recognition of the holiday and in the vein of the many workers' strikes of the 1880's, has declared an 8-hour strike to protest the American presence and activities in Iraq. Apparently the ILWU controls every port on the west coast of the U.S., so the outcome of this will be interesting to see. For more info, read http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/361087_mayday.html, an article in the Seattle PI by Peter Cole. Thanks to Deb Ranjan Sinha for notifying the SCGSG about this article.

22 Apr 08: Web site suggestions

Hello, fellow SCGSG members! As you can see, I am attempting to redesign the group's web site. There are a couple new sections: one introducing the group ("about"), another listing the current officers ("current officers"), a news section ("news"), and two "legacy" sections regarding the 2008 AAG (CFP & CFN).

I don't want to make this site into a carbon copy of other groups' sites, so I'd like a couple ideas of unique sections to go here. Something unique to socialist/critical philosophies. Think activism, blogs, news sources, Web 2.0 sites, etc. Send suggestions to:
BurnsR77@gmail.com. Thanks!

20 Apr 08: AAG a success!

Congratulations to all who successfully presented research at the AAG this year! Congratulations in particular to the two winners of the James Blaut Award: Erik Swyngedouw presenting “Where is the Political?" (2007 award), and Audrey Kobayashi presenting "'Spatializing-spatialized': Sartre's contribution to understanding spatiality, racism, and colonialism" (2008 award).