Poetics, Politics, and Possibilities: Performing Geographies of Writing Differently

This past October, Dr. Sarah de Leeuw gave a presentation titled, Poetics, Politics, and Possibilities: Performing Geographies of Writing Differently, as part of the Creative Geographies & Poetry Conference held at Université Grenoble Alpes in France. A video recording of Dr. de Leeuw’s presentation may be viewed below. A recording of the presentation is also available on the Performance Lab website.

Presentation Abstract

Around the world, geographers write. Writing, however, is not often critically considered by geographers, at least not at its most fundamental structural levels, at scales of letters or sentences. This paper explores the geographies of writing: the ways letters appear in papers or publications; the ways words are combined on (often white) screens or pages; the ways words are arranged or work together to produce new meanings through sound, resonance, or echo, and; the ways we ingest words through breathing or stumbling or slippage. This considering of writing in geography works in dialogue with both poetic and political concerns: the worlds in which geographers write are often violent, populist, hateful, polluted, toxic, and terrifying. How might writing differently produce different worlds, different worldings, and different ways of knowing and being in the world?