Nigel Thrift, University of Warwick (UK)
Halos: New apprehensions of political time and space

I will consider three different forms of space through the conceit of the Halo: the space of the emergency and nurturing of infectious relationships, the design of space as both semiotic intensities and affective traps (Gell, 1990) and the spatial construction of new kinds of community.

Je considère trois formes différentes d'espaces par le biais de la suffisance du Halo : l'espace de l'urgence et du soutien en termes de relations infectieuses, le design de l'espace à la fois en tant qu'intensités sémiotiques et pièges affectifs (Gell, 1990) et la construction spatiale de nouveaux types de collectivités.

Professor Nigel Thrift is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick. Prior to this he was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Oxford. Professor Thrift was made Head of the Division of Life and Environmental Sciences at Oxford in 2003, before which he chaired the Research Committee at The University of Bristol (2001 - 2003) and Bristol's Research Assessment Panel (1997-2001).

Professor Thrift was born in Bath, educated at Aberystwyth and Bristol and is an international research figure in the field of geography (one of the top five most cited geographers in the world in the SSCI/ACHI Indexes, 1988-2002). During his academic career Professor Thrift has been the recipient of a number of distinguished academic awards including the Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal for contributions to geographic research in 2003.

Professor Thrift is an Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. Professor Thrift currently chairs Main Panel H of RAE 2008 from 2003-2006; was a member of the Panel for Geography for the RAE 2001; has been a member of the Leverhulme Prize Fellowship Geography Panel since 2000 and was a member of the ESRC Research Priorities Board between 2001 and 2005. He is a Visiting Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Bristol.