Category: Talks
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A quick summary of my keynote in Riga: Ethics and the everyday in times of global crisis
Last week I had the pleasure and honor of giving the Eurasian Geography and Economics keynote lecture at the 10th International Urban Geographies of Post-Communist States conference. This year it was in Riga – my first time there. The opening was held in this gorgeous Stalinka that has been mostly de-Sovietized. It was a very…
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A quick look at my keynote in Mendrisio: mega-events and marginalities, substance and spectacle
Earlier this month I was invited to give a keynote at a symposium in at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Mendrisio, called Marginal urbanities: The hidden face of planetary urbanisation. It was organized by Mosè Cometta and Giulia Scotto, two wonderful scholars who did a great job putting together the program. It was broad…
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The Hard Edge of Soft Power: My keynote at the (Il)liberal Nation Projection symposium
Vitaly Kazakov at the University of Manchester invited me to give one of the keynotes at a symposium he organized. Over two intense and enjoyable days, we explored various national projection strategies from illiberal and democratic states across different contexts, channels, and platforms. It was interdisciplinary, relevant, and exciting. A real honor to attend. I…
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Play the Game – a new and refreshing kind of conference
I’ve heard of Play the Game, of course, because most of my critical sports friends and colleagues have participated at one time or another. I also contributed a commentary for a series on Protest and the Games organized by Dennis Pauschinger and John Lauermann, where I wrote about the challenges of protesting mega-events in Russia.…
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Five days working for a better Olympics in Paris
With Covid seemingly diminished for the time being, I was finally able to get on the ground in Paris. Long overdue! I spoke at a days-long transnational anti-Olympics summit, at an academic event with more standard scholarly presentations, and at something like a philosophical salon devoted to exploring the nuances of Paris 2024. Vive la…
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The absolutely last virtual talk of 2021: Paris / Tokyo / Mega-Events
Usually, when I give a talk, I’m sharing work in progress. The conference is, for me, a way to share my ideas, to learn who else is working on similar directions, and hopefully to fill in some of the gaps in my work as I get it ready for writing. This time, however, it was…
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The give and take of virtual conferences
I finished a month of rather active conference participation, first at the American Association of Geographer’s annual meeting in virtual Seattle, and then the Dislocating Urban Studies workshop in virtual Malmö. I have mixed feelings about our new virtual world. One obvious benefit is the ability to participate in exciting discussions from around the globe,…
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Lessons from the Congress on Youth and Winter Sports 2020
We organized a series of sessions at the Congress on Youth and Winter Sports 2020 in Lausanne, tied to the Youth Olympic Games. Our sessions were entitled Events, Cities, and Urbanism and focused on the connections between mega-events and urban development from a variety of perspectives. The papers were great, I thought. We had wonderful…
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Session hosting lessons from the 2019 Swiss Geosciences meeting
I was in Fribourg for the 2019 Swiss Geoscience Meeting, and I was part of the newly expanded options for human geography. In 2018, there was only one series of sessions for human geographers, but this year our presence ballooned and we had three parallel streams. It was really well attended too, for the most…