'Emotional Geographies: What and Why?'

Monday 20 November 2006
The University of Wales, Aberystwyth Public Lecture Series
‘Emotional Geographies: What and Why?'
Professor Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick will deliver the J B Willans lecture, the latest in this year's public lecture series on Tuesday 21 November in lecture theatre A12 in the Hugh Owen building at 7.00 p.m.

The subject for Professor Thrift’s lecture will be ‘Emotional Geographies: What and Why?’. In a preview to his lecture he said:
“Why is geography of emotion important? What would a geography of emotion look like? What could we do with it? These are some of the questions I will try to answer in this lecture by drawing on recent work in sources as diverse as biology, cognitive science, rediscovered social theory, and new areas of performance. I will illustrate and extend my arguments by considering two particular geographies of emotion in some details: namely the business corporation and modern democratic politics.”

Professor Thrift is an Aber alumnus (graduated 1971) and went on to earn his PhD from the University of Bristol (1979). During his career he has been head of the Life and Environmental Sciences Division and Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford and Professor of Human Geography a the University of Bristol.

He is considered one of the leading human geographers and social scientists, and is credited for coining the phrase ‘soft modernity’ as well as originating ‘Non-Representational Theory’. Awarded many prizes and commendations recognising his research, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.

He sits on a number of advisory committees for the UK Government, and was a member of the ESRC Research Priorities Board. In 1982 Prof Thrift co-founded the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (http://www.envplan.com/epd/epdinfo.html) whilst serving as a managing editor, since 1979, of the Environment and Planning A (http://www.envplan.com/epa/epainfo.html).