Joe Blakey

Absolute shocker of a rights grab - academics may want to push back hard

📢 CfP RGS-IBG 2026: Post-Foundational Geography in a Turbulent and Polarised World

Please see the below for an exciting session with @joeblakey.bsky.social and @matinakapsali.bsky.social

We look forward to receiving your submissions! Please do get in touch if you have any questions.

A human hand holding a copy of the book Postpolitics and the Aesthetic Imagination, edited by Juan Meneses, against a backdrop of blue and purple hydrangeas

Publication day! Postpolitics and the Aesthetic Imagination, shepherded by the inimitable @lpennywark.bsky.social, is officially out in the world with @uminnpress.bsky.social! Also, the press has a $10 deal on paperbacks using CODE MN93820 you don't want to miss! www.upress.umn.edu/978151791918...

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results:

- AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2%
- ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1%
- ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

Image of a bridge over the Bridgewater Canal with text that reads: 'How do you value nature? Thinking with a beyond natural capital'

🌱 Work with nature in Greater Manchester?
This Saturday, join @joeblakey.bsky.social & Mark Usher for a workshop exploring how nature is valued.
🗓️ 25 Oct 10am-12pm
📍 University Place, Oxford Rd, Mcr
🎟️ Free www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-do-you...

@ukri.org #ESRCFestival #ValuingNature #NaturalCapital

A book cover for Julian Brigstocke's forthcoming book 'Non-Authoritarian Authority: Cities, Materially and the Aesthetics of Power' published by LSE Press and the RGS-IBG, with a black and white aerial photograph of a large crowd in the background.

A book cover for Laurie Parson's forthcoming book 'Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of Environmental Impasse' published by LSE Press and the RGS-IBG, with a black and white photograph of three people riding on a scooter above a body of water filled with litter.

Pleased to share the first two RGS-IBG Book Series titles to be published fully open access with @lsepress.bsky.social, available early 2026...

@laurieparsons.bsky.social
@jbrigstocke.bsky.social

press.lse.ac.uk/books/coming...

🎉 Congrats to @niamhnelson-owens.bsky.social on the publication of 'Towards an affective post-foundational political geography', which brings together literature on affect and post-foundational geography. A fantastic achievement for paper no.1 and a wonderful contribution. doi.org/10.1177/0309...

Poster for the edited book aesthetics and the city. It contains two QR codes to the registration link present in the post (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/aesthetics-and-the-city-book-launch-tickets-1665058728479) and to the book (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003335993), an image of the book, and a brief abstract for the event. There is a kaleidoscope image of a city in the background. These details can all be found in typed form here: http://joeblakey.com/aesthetics

We're hosting a launch event for our edited book Aesthetics and the City on Wednesday 8th October 2025 at 3pm UK time. We would like to invite you to join us. The event is in-person (message for details) at UoM and online (sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/aesthetics... ). Hope to see you there!

Another section from my #CriticalDecade presentation (see attached).

Full transcript at climateuncensored.com/talk-at-the-...

ABSTRACT of paper This paper presents a research agenda on the geographies of middle-age, drawing on life-history interviews with self-identified middle-aged participants from Greater Manchester, UK. The place of middle-age in debates about age within and beyond human geography is explored, including the extension of the category of youth and the deferral of older age. While lived experiences of middle-age are changing and significant, they are frequently overlooked in research. This paper argues that middle-age must be theorized through approaches and concepts of and around the middle. It draws upon more-than-representational theories as one such approach to thinking from and through the middle, emphasizing in-between affective states and forms of change, whilst highlighting a range of concepts and practices of the middle such as impasse, liminality and waiting. Thinking from and through the middle advances relational approaches to age by shifting attention away from the nodes at either end of a relation, towards the middle itself as being invariably in-relation. Geographers interested in ageing are urged to focus on the middle, be these moments of betweenness earlier or later in life, or midlife and middle-age itself. Future research must keep differences in experience at the fore and maintain a distinctly relational vantage point.

I have a new paper out in Social & Cultural Geography titled: Making sense of ‘middle-age’: thinking from and through the middle. It presents a research agenda on the geographies of middle-age, and the value of thinking around the middle more generally. 🔗https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2025.2537686

Thanks you Cristina! :)

Thanks Matina :) Hope all is well and to catch up at some point

Thank you Sarah :) and again for your feedback on the draft. Max’s endorsement should definitely be on the website!!!

Some fantastic contributions by: Amy Barron, Amr Ibrahim, Beatriz Guijarro Turégano, Friederike Landau-Donnelly, Günter Gassner, Joe Blakey, Josh Widera, Julian Brigstocke, Mónica Degen, Salila Vanka, Sanna Lehtinen, Stefanie Fridrik, Taher Abdel-Ghani & Yara Mohamed.

A copy of the aesthetics and the city book against a stone wall with ivy on the left

Today marks the launch of our edited volume Aesthetics and the City. @amycbarron.bsky.social and I are thrilled to see this in print. We hope it’s of interest! Do let us know what you think. We are hosting a hybrid launch event in early October.

🔗More details: www.routledge.com/Aesthetics-a...

Aesthetics and the City Aesthetics and the City engages aesthetics to explore the role of the city in urban experience. Drawing on diverse theories and global case studies, this edited collection examines how aesthetics rela...

I have a chapter in the book on Cities and the Sixth Sense: The Aesthetics of Experimental Urbanism. The chapter looks at experimental architecture/urbanism projects on the US/Mexico border through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s politics of aesthetics. www.routledge.com/Aesthetics-a... #geosky

Thank you Julian, and again for your brilliant chapter. It's lovely to see evidence these are now out in the wild. We are sat eagerly awaiting the UPS delivery van!

So excited to see Aesthetics and the City in print. Congratulations to editors @joeblakey.bsky.social and @amycbarron.bsky.social.

#geosky

An invitation to a Greater Manchester Natural Captital Workshop. Water and aquatic plants are in the background. It details that the event seeks to bring divergent and common perspectives on natural capital accounting frameworks to the fore. It is on Tuesday 22nd June 2025 at the University of Manchester at 10am to 3:30pm. Participants must be a professional in the sector. The registration link is bit.ly/gmnaturalcapital

🌍 Mark Usher and I are collaborating to bring professionals working on natural capital in Greater Manchester together for a workshop on Tues 22nd July (bringing together Mark's work on natural capital and my own on environmental accounting).

Details below and register here: bit.ly/gmnaturalcap...

@joeblakey.bsky.social and I have an upcoming edited book... Aesthetics and the City explores how aesthetics relates to how cities and urban spaces are perceived, organised, and transformed. There's now a web page which lists the many fascinating contributions… 🔗 bit.ly/aestheticsandthecitybook

Hope it’s of interest!

Chapter Contributions by: Amy Barron, Amr Ibrahim, Beatriz Guijarro Turégano, Friederike Landau-Donnelly, Günter Gassner, Joe Blakey, Josh Widera, Julian Brigstocke, Mónica Degen, Salila Vanka, Sanna Lehtinen, Stefanie Fridrik, Taher Abdel-Ghani & Yara Mohamed

An image of the book cover on a city scape viewed through a kaleidoscope. The title of the book Aesthetics and the City is shown along with the editors names (Joe Blakey and Amy Barron). Contributors to the book are listed… Amy Barron, Amr Ibrahim, Beatriz Guijarro Turégano, Friederike Landau-Donnelly, Günter Gassner, Joe Blakey, Josh Widera, Julian Brigstocke, Mónica Degen, Salila Vanka, Sanna Lehtinen, Stefanie Fridrik, Taher Abdel-Ghani & Yara Mohamed

📚 @amycbarron.bsky.social and I have an upcoming edited book... Aesthetics and the City explores how aesthetics relates to how cities and urban spaces are perceived, organised, and transformed. There's now a web page which lists the many fascinating contributions… 🔗 bit.ly/aestheticsandthecitybook

The City Between Geography and Aesthetics: A Conversation with Joe Blakey Joe Blakey is an environmental and political geographer, and Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Manchester. His work focuses on post-foundational political theories within Human Geograph...

A conversation between Andrea Borsari, Arshia Eghbali and I has been published in The Historical City book.

Titled ‘The City Between Geography and Aesthetics’ it discusses the edited book @amycbarron.bsky.social and I have submitted on ‘Aesthetics and the City’.

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Electric planes, new fuel: Can Heathrow's third runway be green? BBC Verify assesses whether Chancellor Rachel Reeves' three key climate claims about the runway add up.

And to nobody's surprise, even the BBC's answer to this question is a big, unequivocal NO!

Cardiff: University confirms plans to cut 400 jobs Vice-chancellor Wendy Larner says

The first domino in what will surely be a cascade. The uni sector needs some radical new political impetus, and quickly

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Worth doing a bit of maths around the UK's 81% NDC announcement. It comes from the net-zero 2050 pathway, which assumes a typical UK citizen receives 3x more emission space than an 'equal per capita' share of the remaining 50% ≤ 1.5°C carbon budget. Colonialism continues unchecked & even celebrated.

@matpaterson.bsky.social - fyi!

Hi Everyone. This is the first post of the Cities Politics Economies Research Group from the Department of Geography, University of Manchester. www.seed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/re...