Tag Archives: conferences

Presenting (Virtually) at UTK Geography Symposium ’21 this Friday

Posted on by
Reply

Time to shake off the dust and clear off the cobwebs! After a year bereft of conferencing, I’m excited to announce that I will be presenting my research on using music videos to teach Geography this Friday morning at 11:30 AM ET. Anyone interested can access the Zoom Link here, and the password is “geosym2021.”

My presentation is entitled ‘Dreaming of Distant Pleasures: Teaching Geography with Music Videos,’ and I’ll paste the abstract below. I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends/colleagues and finally getting a long-in-the-works piece of pedagogy work out there. Hopefully this will see the light of day in some journal before too long.

“See” you on Friday morning if you want to check it out! The rest of the 2-day schedule is available here, with links.

Music videos are unmistakably geographic. Academics have been preoccupied with them since long before MTV, culminating in what cultural critic Simon Frith said, by 1988, had
“generated more scholarly nonsense than anything since punk.” Despite videos’ potential for communicating and understanding sense of place, however representative, geography research on the cultural constant has been limited. Even more limited has been any approach to using music videos to teach geography. In my time teaching undergraduate courses on World Regional Geography, the Geography of Popular Culture, and related cultural topics, music videos have consistently provided valuable perspective into how artists represent and reproduce place. Additionally, the reoriented access to music videos in the streaming video era, especially those previously propelled by heavy rotation on MTV, MuchMusic, and an array of upstart cable networks in the late-20th century, has given life to countless forums of (often highly personal) open-access ethnographic content. This paper seeks to build off of Smiley and Posts’ (2014) foundation on the valuable role that popular music plays in geography pedagogy. Using multiple examples of videos and video-related assignments, I argue that music videos provide an excellent foundation for communicating and understanding the relationship(s) between music, memory, and place.

Sources Cited:
Frith, Simon. Music for Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop. New York: Routledge, 1988.
Smiley, Sarah L, and Chris W Post. “Using Popular Music to Teach the Geography of the United States and Canada.” Journal of Geography 113, no. 6 (2014): 238-46.

UTK GeoSym 2021: Call for Abstracts!

Posted on by
Reply

Through February 26th, the GeoSym committee (Geography Grad Students Research Symposium) at the University of Tennessee are accepting abstracts for their 2021 meeting (online), rescheduled from 2020. I’ll share their CFA below, with contact information for the co-chairs, Danny and Lindy. I had the privilege of chairing this biennial event in its second occurrence in 2016, and I echo their remarks that it’s a wonderful, congenial place to present new research, especially for first-timers.

Donghee Koh tells Matt Miller to talk to the hand as Brooke Pearson helps check people in (2016).

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: GEOSYM 2021

We are pleased to welcome you to GeoSym 2021, the student-led conference for geography at the University of Tennessee. This year, GeoSym will be held on Zoom from Thursday, March 18th to Friday, March 19th.

If you are looking for a place to share your research in a relaxed, genial environment, this is a great option. Opportunities exist for undergrads, grad students, and faculty to present their research in a series of panels and presentations. We also welcome professionals employed in geography and related disciplines to present their research.

EVENT KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr. Latoya Eaves is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Eaves’ research focuses on critical approaches to race, gender, and queer geographies with a regional focus on the U.S. South. She is a member of the Governing Council of the American Association of Geographers and is a co-founder of the AAG Black Geographies Specialty Group. Dr. Eaves earned her PhD in Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University (Miami, FL) and previously served as assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN) before joining us at UT.

Dr. Stephanie Shepherd is an assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences at Auburn University. Her research is focused on fluvial geomorphology, anthropogenic impacts on riverine systems, and GIS applications to these topics. Dr. Shepherd earned her PhD in Environmental Dynamics from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) and previously served as assistant professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, PA) and as visiting assistant professor at Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, PA).

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Registration for GeoSym 2021 is free. Sign up at this link between now and February 26, 2021. Abstracts and scheduling information are submitted at this same link.

We look forward to having everyone join us and please do not hesitate to contact us with questions.

Danny Burow (dburow@vols.utk.edu)

Lindy Westenhoff (lwestenh@vols.utk.edu)

GeoSym 2021 co-chairs

Helen Rosko presents her SEDAAG-award (TM)- winning research on the Moonshine industry (2016).

Down Under Summer 2019: Macquarie University (Sydney), IASPM (Canberra), IAG (Hobart), and More

Posted on by
Reply

bartvsaustralia14

Rand McNally is really off the mark in the Simpsons Universe (see Borneo). I guess we shouldn’t expect much from a place where hamburgers eat people.

For the first time since 2016, I’ll be heading out of the country on academic business. This time, as I mentioned previously, I’m heading to the opposite side of the globe (ostensibly). I can’t wait to see the wonderful cities, meet the wonderful people, swim the wonderful waters, browse the wonderful record shops, and pet a wonderful koala. If you’re in any of these places when I am (see below), please get in touch.

As of now, I have three presentations scheduled.  I’m also planning stops in Cairns, Brisbane, and Melbourne, though I haven’t confirmed any talks or meetings yet. I will do my best to update this post, or post something new, should any details change.

library_sm_635856838012954523

TUESDAY, JUNE 25 – SYDNEY, NSW
Macquarie University
“Music Video, Sense of Place, and the Symbolic Gentrification of Memory”
GeoPlan Seminar Series, W3A 501 Macquarie University
12pm – 1pm

Thank you to Drs. Claudio Minca and Maartje Roelofsen for inviting me to present some of my new research directions at their fine institution, and thank you to Dr. Chris Gibson for connecting me with them. This will be my first colloquium talk outside of the United States. PROGRAM HERE: Announcement Seminar Tyler Sonnichsen

logo_banner_iaspmanu

THURSDAY, JUNE 27 – CANBERRA, ACT
International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Annual Meeting
4:30pm: “Violence, Memory, and Qualitative Research in Punk History”
Stream 6

This will be my first time attending an IASPM meeting, and I look forward to discussing some of my findings from the research that culminated in Capitals of Punk. I’m also grateful to be presenting at the same conference with my friend and UTK colleague Nathan Fleshner. Naturally, we’re scheduled at the same time. This was the first conference I was accepted to in Oz, and it got the wheels moving for this entire trip.

2117133

THURSDAY, JULY 11 – HOBART, TAS
Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) Annual Meeting 
12:40pm: “Music Videos, Emotional Geography, and Pedagogy”
New & Emerging Research in Cultural Geography II (Tasman A)

Once again, I need to thank Joshua Pitt from Palgrave for calling my attention to this meeting, as well as the helpful and supportive IAG staff who encouraged me to apply (insisting that, yes, they do welcome geographers from all over the globe, especially North America). It’s a special treat to be able to present my newer research on Tasmania! Everyone who knows both me and Australia has told me I’ll really appreciate Hobart, which makes me even more excited.

I will have periodic access to WiFi, but I will do my best to keep in touch with those who reach out. See you all on the other side.

Australia

Posted on by
Reply

istock-520334242_16x9

– “Bleedin’ Yanks won’t stop sending geographers down!” “Ahhh, yer always’ complainin!” (Science Magazine)

Surprise! I’m heading down under this summer (/their winter). This will be my first time in the Southern Hemisphere, which I’m almost ashamed to admit. I believe the closest I’ve come was Trinidad in 2016, which was truly one of the best vacations I mean conferences I’ve ever attended. Certain elements of my time in Australia are still in the final planning phases, but I’m incredibly excited.

I’ll post some details soon about where and when I’ll be presenting research, exploring, buying records, playing Knifey Spoony, and more. But in the meantime, let’s all join in singing the Australian National Anthem.

Take it away, Grant.

Oral History Association Meeting This Week in Minneapolis

Posted on by
Reply

1200px-2008-0712-mpls-panorama

For the first time in six years, this week I’ll be returning to the land of Prince, Mitch Hedberg, The ‘Mats, D4, Hüsker Dü, Extreme Noise, the North Stars Wild, the Juicy Lucy, and so much more. I couldn’t be more excited to be back in a place with (1) temperate weather and (2) stuff that’s actually open on Sundays. North-Country paradise!

This will be my first year attending the national meeting of the Oral History Association, and my first oral history conference in general. I look forward to all of the historians I may meet and the variety of valuable lessons I’ll get to learn in quantitative methods, digital archiving, and anything else in which OHA members specialize. For anyone interested, I’m presenting “Memories of Violence and Punk’s Challenge to Oral History” in a session called ‘Oral History at the Intersection of Place and Culture’ this Thursday at 2:15pm, Conrad B Room in the Hilton Minneapolis, right downtown. Program Link.

Otherwise, I’ll be all over the place per usual, hitting landmarks and buying records. If you’re in the Twin Cities, I would love to see you and catch up.