NEW: Download and print Final Program (64k .pdf)
About the Conference
Submitting Papers and Presentations
History of the Conference
Reading Group Meeting
Local Accommodations
Contact

NEWS We strongly encourage you reserve your accommodations early because the conference coincides with the opening weekend of the fall Keeneland racing season and hotels will probably sell out.

Scope of the Conference
This two-day conference aims to provide an inclusive venue for the broad discussion of themes 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:

Cities & Citizenship • Gentrification & Urban Struggles • Peace Studies • Political Ecology • Contemporary Policy Studies • Interactions between Human and Physical Geographies • Critical Geopolitics • GIS and Society • Post Colonial Issues • Cultural Politics • Globilization • Marxian Studies • Race & Identity • Cyber Spaces • Institutional Economics • Space, Place, and Power • Emotional Geographies • Local Politics and Geographies • Social Movements Development • Sustainibility • Extreme Geographies • Migration, Transnationlism, & Post-Nationalism • Terrorism • Gender • Urban Ecology • Neoliberalism & The City

This list of topics is not meant to be exhaustive. We encourage those interested in participating to explore any range of interests and to use the conference as an opportunity to expand their current research agenda, explore new theoretical landscapes, and/or receive feedback on works in progress.

Organization
This year's conference will begin on Thursday evening (Oct. 4, 2007) with an opening chord (rather than a keynote address). Due to expanded interest in the conference over the past several years, we currently plan to have sessions on both Friday and Saturday.

Because we wish to provide a forum for discussion of themes in, and the nature of, critical geography, interested participants should feel free to suggest ways of presenting their research, ideas, and art beyond formal the traditional confines of paper sessions. We shall attempt to accommodate performances, round tables, panels and other communicative fora. If you are unsure about the practicability of a particular format, please contact the organizers:

Morgan Robertson (robertson.morgan@epa.gov)
Patricia Ehrkamp (p.ehrkamp@uky.edu)
Anna Secor (ajseco2@uky.edu)

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: The target deadline for proposing a panel, roundtable, or submitting a paper to the mini-conference is August 1, 2007. Submit abstracts or proposals for panels/roundtables/performances (including title of the paper/session and contact information) to p.ehrkamp@uky.edu or ajseco2@uky.edu.

Format
Panels and Roundtable Discussions
If you wish to organize a panel or roundtable (or an entirely different format), please provide a panel title and the contact information for all panelists/participants. Titles for individual contributions (if relevant) should also be provided. Panel organizers are responsible for the specific allocation of time and structure of the panel session. Please note that we reserve the right to add a panelist to previously organized panels if the topics fit.

Paper Presentations
Paper presenters should submit a paper title, abstract, and contact information by the submission deadline. Paper sessions will include 3 papers and a discussant (90 minutes, generally fifteen minutes per paper, with time reserved at the end for discussion). In mid-August 2007, sessions will be organized and discussants will be identified; paper presenters should forward their paper to the discussant via e-mail by September 27. The purpose of the discussant is to begin group discussion of the ideas and concepts presented in the paper. Consequently, discussants should be provided with the presentation materials as soon as possible.

Reading Group Meeting

As part of this year's conference the Ohio River Social Theory Collective (faculty and students from UK, OSU, Miami U) invites all interested conference participants to join a reading group meeting, scheduled for Saturday, October 6, 2007. We will discuss is Nikolas Rose’s 2007 book,

Rose, N., 2007, The Politics of Life Itself. Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

More information on the location and schedule are forthcoming in the Conference Program.

Brief History of the Conference: The Conference on Critical Geography returns to the University of Kentucky.

The first Mini-Conference on Critical Human Geography was held at the University of Cincinnati in 1994, when Byron Miller (Calgary, formerly University of Cincinnati), Kevin Cox (Ohio State), and J.P. Jones (Arizona, formerly of University of Kentucky) gathered in the moot court chambers of the University of Cincinnati Law School. Since then, the Conference has grown to become one of the most challenging and stimulating venues for intellectual exchange in critical geography. Although its location has moved in close orbit around the Ohio River valley since leaving the University of Cincinnati for the University of Kentucky in 2002, the Conference has come to be recognized by geographers and other critical social scientists as a valuable forum in which everyone from beginning graduate students to senior faculty can interact and exchange ideas in a small-conference setting.

This year, the organizers affirm the expanding profile of the Conference and its national interest by crossing out the 'Mini-crit' sobriquet and instituting a modest but meaningful expansion of the scope and scale of the Conference. It has become increasingly evident that this event is no longer 'mini,' either in participation or in reputation. In a spirit of affirmative negation without erasure we have modestly transformed the title of the conference to reflect the rhizomatic spread and intergalactic extent of mini/many critical geographies.

Accommodation and Events
University of Kentucky graduate students and faculty are willing to host graduate students in their homes. If you would like to stay with a University of Kentucky graduate student or faculty, please contact the conference organizers. In addition, we will soon post information about hotels with available rooms.

Note that the Friday of the conference is also the opening day for the fall season of horse racing at the Keeneland track in Lexington; conference attendees may wish to adjourn to Keeneland after the sessions.

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Lexington (401 W High St., Lexington, KY 40507) located a short walk from the University of Kentucky where the conference will convene. The rate is $139.00 plus tax (for 1 through 4 occupants). Please call (859) 253-1234 and mention the “Geography Conference” to receive the discounted rate. The discounted rate is only available until September 1, 2007.

Information on other area hotels can be found on the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau website and travel websites. We strongly encourage you to make your reservations early because the conference coincides with the opening weekend of the fall Keeneland racing season and hotels will probably sell out.

Directions and Parking

For driving directions to the University of Kentucky, and for area and campus maps, please see the CampusGuide. Parking information is available at UK Parking & Transportation.

Please direct all other questions to one of the organizers.

For more information please contact one of the organizers.

Morgan Robertson (robertson.morgan@epa.gov)
Patricia Ehrkamp (p.ehrkamp@uky.edu)
Anna Secor (ajseco2@uky.edu)
Mathias Detamore (mathiasd@yahoo.com)