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Category: Talks

A quick summary of my keynote in Riga: Ethics and the everyday in times of global crisis

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 fitting venue. This was the 10th edition of the “Cities After Transition” conference – our beloved CATference. In my keynote, I took stock of the…

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A quick look at my keynote in Mendrisio: mega-events and marginalities, substance and spectacle

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 enough that we could all learn from each other’s perspectives but small enough to be intimate and personal. A tough balance, that. My keynote focused…

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The Hard Edge of Soft Power: My keynote at the (Il)liberal Nation Projection symposium

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 wrote a short twitter thread about it: My keynote explored the uncomfortable connections between the Russian mega-event decade and the war in Ukraine. Here’s a…

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Play the Game – a new and refreshing kind of conference

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. But until now, I’d never attended the actual conference. This time, I spoke about the uncomfortable intersections between sport and war, in a talk called…

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Five days working for a better Olympics in Paris

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 France! It was a very busy week. With the anti-Olympics crowd, I spoke three times: about the declining sustainability of the Olympics over time, about…

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The absolutely last virtual talk of 2021: Paris / Tokyo / Mega-Events

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 something new. I spoke at a conference called “Olympic Games and Global Cities”, organized by the Fondation France-Japon at l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences…

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Imprisoned for a retweet: Swiss Geoscience Meeting 2021

Imprisoned for a retweet: Swiss Geoscience Meeting 2021

I’m not going to lie – I miss the energy of conferences in real life. I’ve given a lot of talks this year, and while I’m grateful for the opportunities that virtual participation gives you, I find it increasingly hard to focus during these marathon online conferences. A happy exception to this trend was the session organized by my friend Dennis Pauschinger at this year’s Swiss Geoscience Meeting in virtual Geneva. Dennis hosted a session called “Policing the city: State…

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The give and take of virtual conferences

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, without paying for transit, dealing with jet-lag, or contributing to the destruction of the climate. Via Zoom, I’m able to be in Seattle on Tuesday…

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Lessons from the Congress on Youth and Winter Sports 2020

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 contributors and I was happy to sit on the sidelines this time as an organizer instead of presenting or, more typically for me, doing both…

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Session hosting lessons from the 2019 Swiss Geosciences meeting

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 part, and it’s nice to see that kind of growth year over year. I hosted a session this year and, as usual when I host,…

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