Geography, in Sheffield, 3.30pm Saturday April 16th, 2016

Geography, in Sheffield, 3.30pm Saturday April 16th, 2016

Carl Lee and Danny Dorling talk about geography, what it means to them and why it might be of interest to you: 3.30pm Saturday April 16th 2016. Free entry, Blackwell’s Bookshop, Sheffield University, Jessop West, 1 Upper Hanover Street, Sheffield, S3 7RA. No need to book.

The great challenges of the 21st century are geographical in their formulation, analysis and consequence, and they transcend the physical/social divide. To study the Earth, its biodiversity and humans as part of that, is to study geography.

A few decades ago, our discipline was in the academic doldrums. Split between the science of the physical world and the social science of humanity, it was accused of being a subject without a core: no more than a bunch of disparate interests and maverick academics gathered under the banner of place and space, teaching undergraduates of middling ability who were often set on a career in banking.

In the UK, the phrase “geography teacher” remains a term of abuse. It has been used to disparage the manners, attitudes and even sartorial elegance of individuals as disparate as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and musician Jarvis Cocker. Yet geography has never been more important than it is now. Humans have never been more networked, and we have never known so much about the natural world, its biodiversity, its chemistry, the flows of its energy that we capture and put to work and the consequences of our actions on a dynamic biosphere. The linking of all these things is the essence of geography, and the subject is enjoying a renaissance.

In 1971, US biologist Barry Commoner set out four laws of ecology in his book The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology. These were: everything is connected to everything else; everything must go somewhere; nature knows best; and there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some might think this is all rather New Age and glib, but unpick these simple homilies and you reveal the origins of modern geography.

If you can’t come to the talk, but want more, read more here

Carl Lee and Danny Dorling

Carl Lee and Danny Dorling