Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers,
Annual Conference, London, 30th August – 1st September, 2006.
“Just excess: geography without sustainability”
A session convened by David Clarke, Marcus Doel, and Richard Smith on
behalf of the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG
First call for papers:
An international conference geared around the theme of ‘global social
justice and environmental sustainability’ is perhaps the perfect occasion
for seeking to retrieve the critical and creative potential of excess from
those who would stigmatize, vilify, and denounce it in the name of
moderation, efficiency, equanimity, and other anaemic qualities. Miserly
thinkers fail to appreciate the fundamental importance of excess to both
the maintenance and transformation of social systems and spatial structures.
Contemporary societies have integrated all kinds of excesses into their
core repertoires of practice (e.g. over-consumption, risk taking,
wastefulness, and sacrificial expenditure), and they invariably move to the
rhythm of excess: from the flow of surplus value in the capitalist economy
to the pulsation of desire in the libidinal economy via the turnover of
fashion and celebrity in the cultural economy. Instability, disequilibrium,
and discombobulation are the rule rather than the exception.
This session aims to bring together geographers interested in harnessing
the power of excess for critical and creative ends. Such geographers have
often been inspired by authors who bank on the radical force of excess,
such as Georges Bataille, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques
Derrida, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jean-François Lyotard, Karl Marx, and Marcel
Mauss. They frequently align themselves with inherently unstable
theoretical frameworks, such as dialectics and deconstruction, Marxism and
post-Marxism, and structuralism and post-structuralism. Given that life is
necessarily unsustainable, the session will explore dispositions that value
excess. Potential themes for papers include:
· Critiques of the discourses and practices of sustainability.
· The ideological work of miserly thought.
· The social and spatial construction of scarcity.
· The explosive force and creative potential of excess.
· Geographies of sacrificial expenditure.
· The libidinal economy of consumer culture.
· Dialectics and deconstruction.
· Marxist and post-Marxist geographies of surplus value.
· Structuralist and post-structuralist geographies of expenditure.
· Useless geographies.
Expressions of interest and paper proposals (title and 200-word abstract)
should be emailed by 31st December 2005 to: Marcus Doel (Swansea
University) <[log in to unmask]>
Full proposals should be prepared using the appropriate “Abstract
Submission Form”, which can be downloaded from the conference web-site:
<http://www.rgs.org/category.php?Page=ac2006>
The absolute deadline for the submission of proposals to the RGS-IBG is
31st January 2006.
Dr Richard Smith,
Department of Geography,
University of Leicester,
University Road,
Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3845
Fax: +44 (0)116 252 3854
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/people/rgs10.html
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies:
http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/
Engaging Baudrillard Conference Site:
http://www.swan.ac.uk/mediastudies/baudrillard/index.htm
Globalisation and World Cities Study Group & Network:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc
Please note that my new address from May 1st 2006 is:
Department of Geography,
University of Wales Swansea,
Singleton Park,
Swansea, Wales, SA2 8PP
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