Search

Prompted by the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Foucault's famous book commonly known in English as Madness and Civilization, this essay explores how the book has changed between versions, in the process losing what can be cast as both its phenomenological undertones and a 'romanticism' about the truths supposedly revealed by madness. Reasons for Foucault's own disavowal of these elements are considered, and taken together - conjoining a critical biography of the book with attention to Foucault's reactions to it - this essay fashions a mirror to hold up to certain currents within contemporary human geography. It is argued that the 'romantic fantasy' which permeates the original book, if not overwhelming it, has significant echoes in the 'romantic gesture' displayed by some present-day geographers. The older Foucault's distancing from his earlier romanticism is hence instructive for scholars critiquing the recent history of human geography, but there may also be grounds for claiming that it would be mistaken to lose this romanticism, together with its phenomenological correlates, entirely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This third and final ‘Geographies of food’ review is based on an online blog conversation provoked by the first and second reviews in the series (Cook et al., 2006; 2008a). Authors of the work featured in these reviews — plus others whose work was not but should have been featured — were invited to respond to them, to talk about their own and other people’s work, and to enter into conversations about — and in the process review — other/new work within and beyond what could be called ‘food geographies’. These conversations were coded, edited, arranged, discussed and rearranged to produce a fragmentary, multi-authored text aiming to convey the rich and multi-stranded content, breadth and character of ongoing food studies research within and beyond geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces two personnel changes including resignation of editor Rob Kitchin from the periodical "Progress in Human Geography" and appointment of Professor Pauline McGuirk as new editor as of April 2015.