*Call for Papers:Pragmatism and Geography: Continuing the Conversation*
*Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA
April 9-13, 2013*
**
Geographers have maintained a longstanding if tentative relationship to
pragmatism as philosophy, politics, and method, examining the
implications of pragmatism for urban (Bridge 2005), economic (Barnes
1991), and environmental (Emel 1991, Westcoat 1992) geographies, among
others (see also Barnes 2000). In their introduction to a special issue
of /Geoforum/ (2008) on "Pragmatism and Geography," guest-editors
Nichola Wood and Susan Smith averred that the papers comprising the
journal issue "refer to and constitute practically every significant
statement there is on the engagement between geography and pragmatism."
This CFP is premised on the supposition that there is value in
continuing the conversation between geography and pragmatism. What does
pragmatism offer to geographers, whether as an integral approach to the
production and uses of knowledge or via on-going debates within and
between divergent strands of pragmatism and neo-pragmatism? How does
pragmatism prefigure and connect to contemporary gestures toward
anti-foundationalism, relationality, non-representational theory, and
other manifestations of post-structuralism, especially in light of
Richard Rorty's (1982, xviii) now-famous observation that "James and
Dewey...are waiting at the end of the road which, for example, Foucault
and Deleuze are currently traveling"?What are the implications for
method in geography of pragmatism's premises of contingency, irony, and
provisionality? How does Dewey's belief in the political capacity of an
educated citizenry inform current commitments to participatory research
and communicative democracy?
Papers are invited for a session that explores these or any other
connections between pragmatism and geography. Interested participants
should send the title of your paper and a 250-word abstract by
*Wednesday, October 10, 2012* to [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>.
*References*
Barnes, T. 1991. Conversations and metaphors in economic geography.
/Geografiska Annaler B/ 73: 11-20.
Barnes, T. 2000. Pragmatism. In R. Johnston et al, eds. /Dictionary of
Human Geography./ Oxford: Blackwell, 632-634.
Bridge, G. 2005. /Reason and the City./ London: Routledge.
Emel, J. 1991. Ecological crisis and provocative pragmatism.
/Environment and Planning D: Society and Space/ 9: 384-390.
Rorty, R. 1982. /Consequences of Pragmatism./ Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Westcoat, J. 1992. Common themes in the work of Gilbert White and John
Dewey: a pragmatic appraisal. /Annals of the AAG/ 82: 587-607.
--
Robert W. Lake
Professor and Graduate Director
Director of the Doctoral Program
Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy
Rutgers University
33 Livingston Avenue, Room 483
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1982
telephone 1-848-932-2370
fax 1-732-932-2363
[email protected]
