1. Friday Forum, School of Geography and Environmental Studies ‘Journey towards knowledge’
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of ideas and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

2. Geography challenges Thinking about a discipline Peter Wilde 9 August 2013

3. Today we stand in footsteps millennia old.
May we acknowledge the traditional owners
whose cultures and customs have nurtured,
and continue to nurture, this land,
since men and women awoke from the great dream.
We honour the presence of these ancestors who reside in
the imagination of this land and whose irrepressible
spirituality flows through all creation.
Jonathon Hill

4. My journey towards an understanding of geography

5. Where my journey has led – so far
Space
Region
Sense of place
Time
Societal and physical processes
Place
Scale
Differential change over time indifferent places
Different outcomes of processes in different places
Different expressions of phenomena in different places
Interactions between places
How the characteristics of place and space influence phenomena, processes and outcomes.
Interaction among phenomena in a place

6. Classical regional geography
The 1960s
Classical regional geography
Integrated teaching about human and physical features in space

7. Layered English landscapes: Midlands fields Transport in Birmingham
Motorway
1980
Canal 1770

8. Brewing
West Midlands iron industry around 1850
Iron works – note proximity to canals

9. My home town - Oldham

10. Positivist quantitative physical and human geography
The early 1970s
Positivist quantitative
physical and human geography

11. Christaller’s concept of regions

12. More recent physical geography
Ever more quantitative

13. Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA): A (basic) primer
A simple view as
Earth rotational feedbacks
Gravitational feedbacks
-> Global feedbacks
Modelling critically requires
Time-steps of spatial distribution of ice mass
Knowledge of how Earth responds to loading: (3d) Earth structure (notably, lithospheric thickness, lower & upper mantle viscosity)
Poorly understood

14. Spatial aspects of physical processes Gravity and rebound
Before ice melt
_____ After ice melt
Courtesy of Matt King

15. Geography matters! (Courtesy of Matt King)
Greenland mass loss equiv to 1mm/yr global sea level rise
West Antarctic mass loss equiv to 1mm/yr global sea level rise
Pacific islands feel the brunt, regardless
Northern Europe feels less than average due to Greenland melt!

16. More recent human geography
Post-positive approaches
Ever more sub-disciplines

17. Peet’s view of the growth of sub-disciplines in human geography

18. Malpas quoting Jessop on the churning
Contemporary discourse in relation to space,
both within geography and more generally, has been characterized by ``an unreflexive `churning' of spatial turns, leading to short intellectual product cycles for key socio-spatial concepts, limiting opportunities for learning through theoretical debate, empirical analysis, and critical evaluation of such concepts''
(Jessop et al, 2008, p , quoted in Malpas 2012 p 229).

19. Geography challenges!

20. The course of the good ship UTAS

24. Why keep this discipline?
Geography is confused at the centre and open at the boundaries
Geography opens a world to other disciplines
Geography is atomised among sub-disciplines
Specialisation is more productive than integration
Other disciplines study place and space

25. I know we’re in there somewhere!
Centre for Environment 
Provide solutions for real-world environmental problems.
Be guided by end-users in setting priorities.
Support interdisciplinary research, including science, humanities, government and law
Australian Environmental History (HTA271)
Explores the interaction between human beings and the natural environment in Australian history.
The unit first examines the Aboriginal relationship to the flora and fauna of the continent and then reviews the impact of European settlement on the land and native animals until the 1970s.
It assesses the effects of agriculture, pastoralism, mining, forestry and introduced animals, and of pollution arising from urbanisation and industry.
It traces the rise of an environmental consciousness with the establishment of national parks and nature reserves, the development of ideas about wilderness, conservation, and preservation, and the emergence of the green movement.

27. The new national school curriculum
Geography builds a broad and holistic understanding of the world by integrating knowledge from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Geography develops students’ curiosity and wonder about the world.
Geography explores the places that make up our world, and investigates the effects of location and distance on the characteristics of places, the interconnections between places, and the management of place and space.
Geographical skills include fieldwork in human and physical studies, and interpreting and mapping spatial distributions
Field and computer-based technologies are fundamental to geographical study.
This knowledge and skills can be applied in everyday life and to a variety of careers.

29. Re-forming and re-presenting geography

31. Saying goodbye! We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
…the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known because not looked for…
T.S.Eliot ‘Little Gidding’