landmark Summer 2017 I Edition 5 Into the Inferno: Volcanology on film with Clive Oppenheimer Forum Theatre in an Age of Austerity: Mia Gray and Susan Smith explore Austerity Britain on stage The Department of Geography alumni magazine Inside Interview: James Blake 4 Into the Inferno 6 Forum Theatre in an Age of Austerity 8 Staff Profile: Matthew Gandy 10 Turtles of the Caribbean 12 News 14 Welcome to the new-look landmark fter a few years’ hiatus, it’s my pleasure to bring you the latest version of Landmark, the magazine for alumni of the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge. Landmark will be coming to you annually, packed full of news on Department research, events A and alumni updates. We hope you enjoy it. Since the last edition of Landmark in 2010, Cambridge Geography has continued to excel, regularly featuring at the top of league tables in teaching and research. Our staff of 35 academics publish ground- breaking research, win prizes, and attract large grants from many different sectors. On pages 6–9 you can read about two of the Department’s forays into popular culture: Prof Clive Oppenheimer writes of his award-winning Netflix documentary Into the Inferno, while Dr Mia Gray and Prof Susan Smith reflect on their nationwide theatre tour, exploring the effects of austerity on modern Britain. We are heralding the start of a new era as we say goodbye to a cohort of professors who have been with us since the 1980s, now embarking on their retirements, and welcome a new generation of researchers. On pages 10–11 you can read about our new Professor of Cultural and Historical Geography, Matthew Gandy, whose academic career has now come full circle, returning him to Cambridge where he studied as an undergraduate. Our student population also continues to flourish, with over 300 undergraduate and around 130 graduate students all undertaking exciting research projects that take them all over the world: 2nd year student Julia Ganis writes of her work with the Jumby Bay Turtle Project on pages 12–13. The re-launch of Landmark is just the start of our alumni engagement programme as we begin preparations for celebrating 100 years of the Geography Tripos in 2019. From Michaelmas, we’ll be sending out a termly e-newsletter with updates on Department life and alumni activities. This will sit alongside our new alumni webpages and social media channels. We’ve also got a host of alumni events and projects planned for the years ahead- watch this space! We would really like to hear your thoughts on our plans: what kinds of news stories are of most interest to you? What events would you like to see being organised? What do you think our centenary celebrations should include? Please get in touch - I look forward to hearing from you. Contact us: Dr Anna Jenkin, Landmark Editor [email protected] www.geog.cam.ac.uk/alumni Alumni Relations, Department 01223 339 818 Prof Ash Amin of Geography, University of @CamUniGeography Head of Department Cambridge, Downing Place, @CamUniGeography CB2 3EN camunigeography landmark 3 Interview James Blake (Sidney Sussex, BA 1996-95, PhD 1995-99), Chief Executive of the Youth Hostels Association and former Chief Executive of St Albans City and District Council was keynote speaker at our PhD Conference in April. Landmark caught up with him to discuss memories of Cambridge Geography, life in central and local government and his latest career move. Photographer Nathan Pitt ©University of Cambridge Nathan Pitt Photographer 4 Summer 2017 I Edition 5 chose to study geography because of its breadth. I was interested “ I’ve been involved in the YHA for in lots of different things and a long time, and it’s something I’m geography offered that. I applied to Cambridge because of its passionate about. The YHA has its ‘Ireputation for geography and because I knew a few others who had enjoyed it. I was origins in the 1930s countryside drawn to Sidney Sussex because it had a really dynamic team in Dick Chorley, Stuart movement, so I suppose, in a way, I’m Corbridge and Graham Smith, and it was returning to my environmental roots. ” exciting to be part of that.’ James remembers his undergraduate years as Following 10 years in central government, full of ‘fantastic people, who were very friendly rising to Senior Civil Servant, James was again but also intellectually stimulating. My favourite ready to move: ‘I was feeling a little ivory – memory was the Part IB Majorca fieldtrip with towered – I wanted to stop creating policies Tim Bayliss-Smith and Linda McDowell. It was on local government and regeneration and a great chance to apply geographical research actually deliver them.’ He became Head of to a nice holiday destination!’ Policy at St Albans Council, and eventually Chief Executive. After his BA, James continued to PhD: ‘I stayed on because I felt I still had things I wanted James still uses geography today: ‘It’s local to explore. I’d developed a deep interest in government’s job to understand places and environmental geography, linked to Sue communities - what geography is all about. Owens’ research unit, which was doing a lot of For example, I deal a lot with debates on the exciting things.’ balance between providing affordable housing and protecting green belt land, something But, after four years, James was looking for Sue explored in the 1990s. My PhD was on a change: ‘I wanted people to read my work how to understand environmental values and beyond Sue, my examiners (and maybe my translate them into action, and now I work to Dad!).’ He joined the Civil Service Fast Stream get people recycling.’ and was placed in the Department of the Environment. Moving into central government After a successful eight years, James is moving had some revelations: ‘I went from having on again to become Chief Executive of the a huge amount of knowledge and no Youth Hostels Association: ‘I’ve been involved connections to having all the connections and in the YHA for a long time, and it’s something no time to think!’ I’m passionate about. The YHA has its origins in the 1930s countryside movement, so However, James’s geographical training I suppose, in a way, I’m returning to my helped him transition: ‘I think geography, environmental roots.’ more than any other subject, bridges the gulf between research and practice. Geographers So, what advice does James have for today’s gain skills in fieldwork, information collection geographers? ‘Grab all the opportunities you and analysis, but also in assembling varied can, but wherever you go, hold onto your perspectives. This makes for grounded, geographical mindset – and take confidence rounded graduates who can adapt to different from it. Remember, once a geographer, always work environments.’ a geographer!’ landmark 5 Into the Inferno Clive Oppenheimer Professor of Volcanology ack in 1994, the year I joined Wild Blue Yonder. When the spacemen arrive, the Department of Geography, they descend through a liquid atmosphere. I found myself in Klyuchi City, For this, Werner Herzog employed underwater in the Russian Far East. It was footage shot by a friend beneath the ice shelf there that I first met a fellow that grips Ross Island. But Herzog wanted to see Bvolcanologist who would later become one Antarctica for himself. of my closest colleagues. He was prone to spending boreal summers in Kamchatka These convoluted histories led to a and austral ones in Antarctica. He liked my serendipitous encounter between volcanologist spectrometers (they have been admired by and filmmaker in 2006, in a remote field many over the years), and intimated that one camp close to the steaming (and sporadically day there might be a chance to join him on explosive) crater of Mount Erebus. Herzog was Mount Erebus, on whose slopes Scott and then making Encounters at the End of the World Shackleton sojourned more than a century ago. (which went on to receive an academy award My first visit to the volcano, which dominates nomination). We fell in – not the crater, I hasten Ross Island, was in 2003. to add – and kept in touch. Five years on, a book I had been labouring on since joining the Around the same time, Werner Herzog was Department was published – Eruptions that working on the film The Wild Blue Yonder. What Shook the World. I sent Herzog a copy, in which started out as a movie on life aboard the Space I wrote something along the lines of: ‘you’re not Shuttle transformed, under the director’s spell, done with volcanoes yet’. I soon received his into a yarn about astronauts escaping a plagued enthusiastic and affirmative response. Earth to colonise an extrasolar planet – the 6 Summer 2017 I Edition 5 I thought the combination of volcanoes plus fossils in the Ethiopian Rift Valley, village chiefs Herzog would be an easy sell, but it took us sustaining traditional lore, a carpenter at Java’s three years to secure financing for our film. The “Chicken Church” (curiously aligned with Merapi working title, Into the Inferno, which I suggested volcano), and dedicated volcanologists. Of all as a joke over lunch with Herzog and the the contributors, special mention must go to producers back in 2012, stuck. Ultimately, Netflix Chief Moses from Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. backed us with a full commission. This gave us It is his commentary – sincere and profound, vast freedom – more often, a consortium of sometimes playful, sometimes solemn – that sponsors and networks needs to be placated, bookends the film. each eager to influence the production.