BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Performance and aesthetics in geography: a cultural politics beyon d representation? - Lizzie Richardson (University of Cambridge) DTSTART:20150528T120000Z DTEND:20150528T130000Z UID:TALK59353@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Dr. P MR Howell DESCRIPTION:The shift away from the perceived pervasiveness of representat ions in the so-called ‘new cultural geography’ has left open the quest ion of cultural politics in geography. In Anglo-American ‘cultural geogr aphy’\, but also in ‘human geography’ more broadly\, there has been a move from identity politics onto the embodied\, affective and emotional aspects of experience that can resist the apparently stabilising tendencie s of fixed social categories. A result is that explanations for why ‘the world is marked by inequalities and injustices’ have ‘disappeared fro m at least some strands of cultural geography’ (Cresswell 2010). This ra ther parochial academic debate mirrors ongoing wider narratives of a ‘po st’ (-feminist\; -race\; -gay etc) era\, in which questions are being po sed over the sorts of contests that should be made for and through categor ies of gender\, sexuality\, race and class. For some\, these questions con stitute a present marked by ambivalence\, anxiety and vulnerability. This talk foregrounds such a condition of ambivalence\, suggesting that it is c entral to the subject of culture in recent geographical work and is vital to any attempts to understand a ‘cultural politics’. I put forward aes thetics as a means for apprehending this ambivalent present through the un certain matter of culture. Through three different usages of aesthetics in recent geographical scholarship\, I suggest that a cultural politics emer ges in the contradictions and resistances involved of the work of the huma n as a sometimes universal\, sometimes differentiated figure. LOCATION:Room 101\, Hardy Building\, Department of Geography END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR