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Dr Derek McCormack

• Academic Profile
• Current Research
• Current Teaching
• Publications

Academic Profile

Originally from Leixlip, Ireland, Derek joined the School of Geography and the Environment in October 2006. Derek has a PhD from the School of Geographical Sciences at Bristol University; an MSc in Geography from Virginia Tech; and a BA(Hons) in Geography and Sociology from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Before taking up his post at the School, Derek worked as a lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton.

Derek's research has been at the forefront of a number of agendas within geography including non-representational theory, performance, and affect. His work has appeared in major geography journals including Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Progress in Human Geography, and Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. His work has been funded by The British Academy, the World Universities Network (WUN) and the Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) network. In 2005 Derek received a Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award from the University of Southampton for his contribution to innovative research-based fieldwork teaching. He has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of Oslo and Bergen, and has given invited presentations at a range of major universities.

Reflecting his particular commitment to interdisciplinary research, Derek is a participant in Technologies of Lived Abstraction, an ongoing series of research-creation events organised by the Erin Manning (Concordia) and Brian Massumi (University of Montreal). Such participation builds upon his involvement in Landscaping, a collaborative research residency at (and funded by) the Chisenhale Dance Space, London, 2001 and Mapping, an interdisciplinary mapping workshop at Cardiff, 2004.

Current Research

Derek's research is animated by a particular concern with the following question: what happens to the practice and craft of thinking space when one takes seriously processes of corporeality and affectivity? Animated by this questions, his work falls into three distinct but related areas:

1. Spaces of the moving body

Derek's work in this area focuses on the question of how the moving body is generative of particular kinds of spaces, and the techniques by which this generativity becomes implicated in a range of cultural practices and performances. Such research involves three components: the development of conceptual resources with which to think through the spaces of the moving body; a commitment to empirical experiment with the moving body as a site of research-creation; and an exploration of the sites and practices at which such research-creation takes place.

2. Geographies of affect

Derek's research has been at the forefront of the emergence of affect as a research agenda within human geography. His work here has centred on how attending to the multiple registers of affectivity offers possibilities for expanding the empirical, ethical, and political horizons of human geographical thought.

3. Techniques and technologies of kinaesthetic cultures

Drawing upon his research interests in affectivity and the moving body, in addition to earlier research into geographies of fitnesss, Derek is developing research projects (with Dr Alan Latham at UCL) into the emergence and transformation of contemporary kinaesthetic techniques and technologies.

Selected Research Projects (since 2001)

• None currently listed

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

Derek currently lectures in cultural geography for the Preliminary Examination. For the Final Honours School, Derek contributes lectures on 'Spaces of Movement and Mobility', in addition to co-teaching a Special Subject (with Dr Andrew Barry) on 'Spaces of Politics'.

Postgraduate Teaching

At the graduate level, Derek contributes to the MSc in Nature Society and Environmental Policy, convening the 'Research Design' and 'Nature and Society' modules, in addition to an optional module, 'Contemporary Issues In Human Geography'. He also contributes seminars to the D.Phil. research-training programme.

Current graduate students include:

• Joe Gerlach
  Vernacular mappings: affect, virtuality, performance.
• Yi-Yang (Jeff) Hung
  The production and consumption of affective environments: A case study of music and fashion.
• Thomas Jellis
  Spaces of aesthetic experiment

D.Phil. students successfully completing since 2001:

• No OUCE graduates currently listed

Selected Publications

Books

• McCormack, D.P., Latham, A., McNamara, K. and McNeill, D. (2008) Key Concepts in Urban Geography. Sage, 240 pp.

Papers and Articles

• McCormack, D.P. (forthcoming, 2010) Remotely Sensing Spectral Geographies: Affective materials and the afterlife of the 1897 Andree expedition. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
• Carter, S. and McCormack, D.P. (in press, 2010) Affectivity, geopolitics and cinema. In, MacDonald, F., Hughes, R., and Dodds, K. (eds.) Observant States. IB Tauris, London.
• McCormack, D.P. (in press, 2010) Thinking in transition: the affirmative refrain of experience/experiment. In, B. Anderson and P. Harrison (eds.) Taking Place: Non-representational Theories and Geography. London: Ashgate.
• Carter, S. and McCormack, D.P. (2009) Film, geopolitics and the affective logics of intervention. Ch. 56, in Dodds, K. (ed.) (2009) Geopolitics, vol. 3. SAGE. pp. 347-368. (Reprinted from Political Geography, 25(2006): 228-245.)
• McCormack, D.P. (2009) Performativity. In, R. Kitchen and N. Thrift (eds.) The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. London: Elsevier.
• McCormack, D.P. (2009) Sense/Sensorium. In, R. Kitchen and N. Thrift (eds.) The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. London: Elsevier.
• McCormack, D.P. (2009) Becoming. In, R. Kitchen and N. Thrift (eds.) The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. London: Elsevier.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P. (2009) Thinking with images in non-representational cities: Vignettes from Berlin. Area, 41 (3): 252-262.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P. (2009) Globalizations big and small: Notes on urban studies, actor-network theory, and geographical scale. In, I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.) Urban Assemblages, London: Routledge.
• McCormack, D.P. (2009) Aerostatic spacing: On things becoming lighter than air. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 34(1): 25-41.
• McCormack, D.P. (2008) Engineering affective atmospheres on the moving geographies of the 1897 Andrée expedition. Cultural Geographies, 15(4): 413–430.
• McCormack, D.P. (2008) Geographies for moving bodies: Thinking, dancing, spaces. Geography Compass, 2.
• McCormack, D.P. (2008) Thinking-spaces for research creation. Inflexions, 1.1.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P. (2008) Speed and Slowness. In, T. Hall, P. Hubbard, and J. Short (eds.) The Sage Companion to the City. London: Sage.
• McCormack, D.P. (2007) Politics and moving bodies, Review Essay Political Theory, 35(6): 816-824.
• McCormack, D.P. (2007) Molecular affects in human geographies. Environment and Planning A, 39(2): 359-377.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P. (2007) Digital photography and web-based assignments in an urban field-course: Snapshots from Berlin. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31(2): 241-256.
• McCormack, D.P. (2006) For the love of pipes and cables: a response to Deborah Thien. Area, 38(3): 330-332.
• Carter, S. and McCormack, D.P. (2006) Film, geopolitics, and the affective logics of intervention. Political Geography, 25(2): 228-245.
• McCormack, D.P. (2005) Diagramming power in practice and performance. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23(1): 119-147.
• McCormack, D.P. (2004) Introduction. In, N. Thrift and S. Whatmore (eds.) Techniques and (non)representation, vol. 2. Cultural Geography: Critical Concepts. London: Routledge.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P. (2004) Moving cities: rethinking the materialities of urban geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 28(6): 701-724.
• McCormack, D.P. (2004) Drawing out the lines of the event. Cultural Geographies, 11(2): 211-220.
• McCormack, D.P. (2003) An event of geographical ethics in spaces of affect. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28(4): 488-507.
• McCormack, D.P. (2002) A paper with an interest in rhythm. Geoforum, 33(4): 469-485.
• McCormack, D.P. (1999) Body-shopping: reconfiguring the place of fitness. Gender, Place and Culture, 6(2): 155-177.
• Ó'Tuathail, G. and McCormack, D.P. (1998) The technoliteracy challenge: teaching globalisation using the Internet. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 22(3): 347-361.
• Ó'Tuathail, G. and McCormack, D.P. (1998) Global Conflicts on-line: technoliteracy and the development of an internet-based conflict archive. Journal of Geography, 97: 1-11.
• McCormack, D.P. (1997) Postcards from the edge: bodies, spaces, and globalisation. Geographical Viewpoint, 24: 29-34.