Coffee Hour at UMN Geography

04/28/2014

Please join us this Friday, for our very special Brown Day speaker,
Dr. Mona Domosh.

Dr. Domosh is a Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College, the Joan P. and Edward J. Foley Jr. 1933 Professor, and Vice President of the Association of American Geographers.

Her talk for the May 2nd Department of Geography, Environment and Society's Annual Ralph Hall Brown Day Lecture will be:

"From the U.S. South to the Global South: Practicing Development at Home."

Abstract:

Drawing on a range of works that extend from gendered
historical analyses of colonialism to critical histories of
development, and based on archival research in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, I argue in this talk that what we now call international development - a form of hegemony different from but related to colonialism - needs to be understood not only as a geopolitical tool of the cold war, but also as a technique of governance that took shape within the realm of the domestic and through a racialized gaze. I do so by tracing some of the key elements of the United States' international development practices in the postwar era to a different time and place: the American South, a region considered 'undeveloped' in the first decades of the 20th century, and the agricultural extension practices that targeted the rural farm home and farm women,
particularly African-American women. Thus I am able to interrogate two relatively unexamined elements that are key to understanding the making of American international development: that much of its early focus was on governing through biopolitical practices of the domestic (food preparation, health, and sanitation), and that those practices were based on the agricultural extension work of the United States Department of Agriculture in the American South.

Please note the special location:
The talk will be held in Honeywell Auditorium, L-110 Carlson School of Management beginning at 3:30 PM. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15 PM.

Hope to see you this Friday!

04/23/2014

This Friday, our very own Joseph E. Schwartzberg...Joe :)...will discuss his book:

Transforming the United Nations System: Designs for a Workable World

"… an essential reference work
for all those who are concerned
with … a new United Nations.”
-Boutros Boutros-Ghali

“… lucidly and intelligently presents a sweeping series of new,
innovative ideas designed to reform the United Nations’ structure
and performance. From weighted voting to the constructive use
of regional representation….[Readers ]will find a rich mother lode
to change current thinking. …. [A] rare compendium of forward-
looking ideas to structure world cooperation.”
-Thomas Pickering, Former US Ambassador to the United Nations
and former US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs.

“It is a joy and a privilege to read [this] …manuscript replete with
common sense approaches and pragmatic solutions. … United
Nations reform is inescapable not utopian. Indeed, world peace
requires reform of global institutions and strengthening of the rule
of law nationally and internationally.”
-Alfred M. de Zayas, UN Independent Expert on the Promotion
of a Democratic and Equitable International Order

Nobody has thought longer of harder than Joe Schwartzberg
about the challenge of designing a fairer and better world order.
This book is an essential contribution to a long overdue conversa-
tion about UN reform…. [and] more broadly about what passes for
our current system of global governance.”
-Thomas G. Weiss, past President, Academic Council on the
United Nations System and of the International Studies Association

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

http://unu.edu/publications/books/transforming-the-united-nations-system-designs-for-a-workable-world.html

Global problems require global solutions. However, the United Nations, as presently constituted, is incapable of addressing many global problems effectively. One nation–one vote decision-making in most UN agencies fails to reflect the distribution of power in the world at large, while the allocation…

04/14/2014

This Friday!

GEOGRAPHY COFFEE HOUR
3:30pm, 445 Blegen
Refreshments served

Apartheid Remains: Ruins of Segregation, Remnants of Struggle

Sharad Chari
Associate Professor
Anthropology and Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand

ABSTRACT. The Indian Ocean city of Durban is a palimpsest of many layers of segregation, apartheid and struggle. The differentiated remains of the past speak to different moments in a century of state-sanctioned racism and opposition. This paper emerges from research grounded in two neighbourhoods in South Durban, in which the key question is how remains of the past persist as obstacles to change in the present. In this talk, I focus on the revolutionary outburst in 1970s and 1980s Durban that was key to apartheid’s end. I trace the spatial dialectics of revolution through four moments: a communitarian or ‘politico-theological’ moment, an insurrectionist moment, an attempt to bring the two together in something like an urban revolution, and what I call the moment of the disqualified, exemplified in a spectacular sabotage cell and in the limits to revolutionary expertise from the perspective of people who still live in frustration in neighbourhoods next to oil refineries today.

03/31/2014

Please join us this Friday, April 4th for the Department of Geography, Environment and Society Coffee Hour.

Dr. Rica Nagar of the University of Minnesota Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies will be presenting on “Truths, Tales, and Journeys with Sangtin.”

Abstract:

This talk ties together insights gained from twelve years of journeying with members of Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan in India, in an open-ended articulation of “Four Truths of Storytelling and Coauthorship.” For those who work in alliances across borders, coauthored stories can serve as a powerful tool to mobilize experience in order to write against relations of power that produce violence, and to imagine and enact contextually grounded visions and ethics of social change. Such work demands that we not only grapple with the complexities of identity, representation, and political imagination, but also rethink the assumptions and possibilities associated with engagement, expertise, and the very idea of authorship.

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

03/25/2014

Please join us this Friday, March 28th for the Department of Geography, Environment and Society Coffee Hour.

Dr. Joe Knight Associate Professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Forest Resources will be presenting on “Land Cover Classification using Image Objects and Lidar.”

Abstract:

This seminar will provide an overview of applications of object-based image analysis, including wetland mapping and land cover classification. The goal will be to demonstrate the practical value of incorporating these techniques into mapping efforts in various disciplines. Emphasis will be placed on the advantages to be gained from integrating multiple data types, such as optical imagery and the new Minnesota statewide lidar data set, into a classification workflow. Recent research results will be used to illustrate current and potential application areas.

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

03/11/2014

There will be no Coffee Hour this week.

But looking ahead, please join us on March 28th to hear Dr. Joe Night give a talk on "Land Cover Classification Using Image Objects and Lidar."

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you Friday March 28th!

03/05/2014

Please join us this Friday, March 7th for the Department of Geography, Environment and Society Coffee Hour.

Dr. Ben Cook, from NASA, will give a talk titled “Global Warming and 21st Century Drying.”

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

Abstract:

Abstract Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of droughts in the 21st century, but the relative contributions from changes in moisture supply (precipitation) versus ev***rative demand (potential evapotranspiration; PET) have not been comprehensively assessed. Using output from a suite of general circulation model (GCM) simulations from version 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, projected 21st-century drying and wetting trends are investigated using two offline indices of surface moisture balance: the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). PDSI and SPEI projections using precipitation and Penman-Monteith based PET changes from the GCMs generally agree, showing robust cross-model drying in western North America, Central America, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and the Amazon and robust wetting occurring in the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes and east Africa (PDSI only). The SPEI is more sensitive to PET changes than the PDSI, especially in arid regions such as the Sahara and Middle East. Regional drying and wetting patterns largely mirror the spatially heterogeneous response of precipitation in the models, although drying in the PDSI and SPEI calculations extends beyond the regions of reduced precipitation. This expansion of drying areas is attributed to globally widespread increases in PET, caused by increases in surface net radiation and the v***r pressure deficit. Increased PET not only intensifies drying in areas where precipitation is already reduced, it also drives areas into drought that would otherwise experience little drying or even wetting from precipitation trends alone. This PET amplification effect is largest in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, and is especially pronounced in western North America, Europe, and southeast China. Compared to PDSI projections using precipitation changes only, the projections incorporating both precipitation and PET changes increase the percentage of global land area projected to experience at least moderate drying (PDSI standard deviation of ≤ −1) by the end of the 21st-century from 12% to 30%. PET induced moderate drying is even more severe in the SPEI projections (SPEI standard deviation of ≤ −1; 11% to 44%), although this is likely less meaningful because much of the PET induced drying in the SPEI occurs in the aforementioned arid regions. Integrated accounting of both the supply and demand sides of the surface moisture balance is therefore critical for characterizing the full range of projected drought risks tied to increasing greenhouse gases and associated warming of the climate system.

02/06/2014

An entire semester of great talks!

02/06/2014

Please join us this Friday, February 7th for the Department of Geography, Environment and Society Coffee Hour.

Dr. Evan Larson, Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, will give a talk titled “A World in Pieces: Fragmentation and the Fundamental Influence of Landscape Structure on Forest Ecosystems."

Abstract:
The structure of our environment is fundamentally different than at any time in the past. Roads, expanding urban and suburban boundaries, shifting patterns of agriculture, and resource extraction on massive scales have collectively produced a world covered by shattered pieces of formerly continuous ecosystems. These changes in structure are particularly evident in the forests of the world, in part because trees and the communities they compose operate at time scales far beyond the typical span of human observation. In this presentation, I will describe research I conducted in northern Sweden that used a naturally-fragmented boreal forest landscape as an analog for modern fragmented forests in order to better understand the potential implications of processes that were set in motion a century ago. While my presentation will focus on boreal forest systems, it seeks an answer to the overarching question: what have we truly done by changing the structure of our world?

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

01/27/2014

Please join us this Friday, January 31st for the Department of Geography, Environment and Society Coffee Hour.

Susan Schmidt is the Minnesota State Director of the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national organization dedicated to conserving land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, and other natural areas, ensuring livable communities for generations to come will give a talk titled “The Trust for Public Land: Conserving Land and Creating Parks for People.”

Biography:

Susan has worked with The Trust for Public Land for 13 years. She has 30 years of experience working with local and state agencies, business and community partners in community development, land conservation and environmental protection. Susan’s previous positions include Minnesota Legislative Water Commission, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, Minnesota Project and the Headwaters Regional Development Commission.

She received her B.A. in Geography from the University of Iowa and her M.A. in Public Affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. She lives with her family in a very walkable St. Paul neighborhood.

The talk will be held in Blegen Hall 445 beginning at 3:30. Complimentary refreshments and coffee will be served at 3:15.

Hope to see you this Friday!

01/23/2014

Our first guest speaker of the semester is Susan Schmidt, Minnesota State Director of The Trust for Public Lands. Join us on January 31 at 3:15 and learn more about the work this national organization does in an effort to preserve lands that are important to communities.