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Hi All, Please find below an invitation to an event being run by Geography at Plymouth University. Please direct any queries about this to Nicki Whitehouse ([log in to unmask]). Best wishes, Paul ***************************************************************************************************** You are warmly invited to attend the next Geography Mark Blacksell lecture, on the 6th November 2014. The lecture is being delivered by Prof Rachel Woodward entitled: 'Why do we need to look at military landscapes?' If you are interested in attending, please sign up for the event using the link below, where you will also find further information on the event: https://www5.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/the-mark-blacksell-public-lecture The lecture will start at 6:30 pm and will be followed by a wine reception at approximately 7:30. Further details on the event can be found below. All welcome Best wishes Nicki Whitehouse ******************************************************************** The Mark Blacksell Lecture Professor Rachel Woodward (Newcastle University): Why do we need to look at military landscapes? 6:30 pm, Thursday 6th November 2014, Rolle Building, Room 018 The Mark Blacksell Lecture is a public lecture that is aimed at a wide audience. Members of the public, academics and anyone with an interest in the Armed Forces will find it stimulating and informative. It is free to attend but booking is essential. Doors will open at 18:15 and the lecture will start promptly at 18.30. The audience is also warmly invited to the drinks reception following the talk. Why do we need to look at military landscapes? Why, exactly, should we look at military landscapes? This lecture, which will draw on fieldwork and observations from around the UK, starts from an initial observation about the ubiquity of military landscapes. They are visible everywhere, as sites, places and spaces which can be read for what they tell us both about armed conflict itself as an event, but also for what we can learn about the huge range of activities that make the pursuit of military operations possible. In thinking about military sites as landscapes, we are prompted to consider not just their basic elements – what they look like and how their material features can be interpreted – but also their cultural significance in terms of how they can be interpreted and experienced, and how those interpretations happen in very different ways depending on one’s background, training, and purpose. This lecture proposes that there is an imperative to look at military landscapes, for three reasons. First, looking at these landscapes prompts us to think about all the obvious and less obvious ways in which military power works in space. Second, in studying military landscapes, we always have to consider how we can engage (or otherwise) with these spaces – what can we see, for example, and what can we not see? How does who we are influence what might be visible to us? Third, considering military landscapes provides a way to think through more abstract questions about how military power works. So, for example, they prompt us to consider the interconnections between landscape, military power and national identity, or to contemplate how landscapes become mobilised in personal responses to armed conflict and how it affects us all in different ways. Professor Rachel Woodward is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geography Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. She is a trailblazer in the field of Military Geography with an international reputation for her work. Rachel’s 2004 book ‘Military Geographies’ set the agenda for geographical research on the Armed Forces and continues to be highly influential. Her paper ‘Military landscapes: Agendas and approaches for future research’, which was published earlier this year in ‘Progress in Human Geography’, underlines her continuing leadership of Military Geography and forms the basis of tonight’s talk.