CityLab in Miami

I spent two days in Miami at the CityLab conference. Really interesting. Lots of very smart people: city mayors and politicians; not for profit organizations doing good work; private market folks looking to make money in funding socially responsible ventures. After the dry desiccation of most academic conferences this was a fertile setting for a frank exchange of ideas and information.
Here are some photos from Miami and Miami Beach.

Miami (©John Rennie Short)

Miami (©John Rennie Short)

Miami (©John Rennie Short)

Miami Beach (©John Rennie Short)

Container ship sailing into Miami (©John Rennie Short)

Arguments for permanent site of Summer Olympics: radio discussion

I was interviewed by the CBC radio show The Current. The topic: should we have a permanent site for the Olympic Games?  I and an Olympic Games historian, Robert K Barney from Western University, debated the issue. Sometimes, in these radio interviews your comments are edited down to a few phrases or sometime left out all together, as happened to me when I was interviewed a month ago by the BBC. I heard some of my arguments but not in my voice or even with a mention. This CBC program is a rare case of allowing the interviewees enough space to make their arguments. You can access the program here.  

Olympic Park in Montreal (© John Rennie Short)

Richmond, Virginia and the evolving iconography of the Civil War

Visited Richmond Virginia on a hot humid day. It was a major slave market and the capital for the breakaway Confederacy. The city has a pronounced Civil War iconography. Along Monument Avenue there are imposing statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson. It is all honor and romanticized resistance; no sense of slavery. But at the far end of the Avenue, looking away from Davis, there is a more recent monument to the African American tennis star Arthur Ashe.

The dissonance continues in the Virginia Historical Society. After passing through huge paintings depicting Lee and his officers as bearded heroes looking resolutely onto a battle scene, the contemporary exhibition on Virginia's history takes an unflinching look at the race, class and gendered nature of the state’s evolution. While some rooms celebrate the white romanticized South, others deconstruct its racial, class and gender bias.

Richmond's urban landscape and institutional memory embodies the history of the South but also the complex and evolving and conflicting ways of understanding and dealing with this past.

Monument to Jefferson Davis (©John Rennie Short) 

Travels to the Arctic Circle

Midsummer. From Alesund  sailed up the coast to Honningsvag in the northern most part of mainland Norway. The days got longer and the light more brilliant.  Embraced in  a sea-scrubbed, crystalline light. 

Alesund (©John Rennie Short)

Digermulen  (©John Rennie Short)

Honningsvag (©John Rennie Short)

Geirangerfjord  (©John Rennie Short)

Geiranger  (©John Rennie Short)

Perpetual light close to Arctic Circle  (©John Rennie Short)

Bergen  (©John Rennie Short)

Travels in Scotland: Orkney and Shetlands

In high summer the light in northern Scotland is magical. Photos can rarely capture the austere beauty of the islands.

Ring of Brogdar, neolithic stone circle, Orkneys  (© John Rennie Short)

Shetland landscape  (© John Rennie Short)

Travels in Scotland: Edinburgh

Visited Scotland and traveled to Edinburgh, Orkney and Shetlands. Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful built forms in the world. Here are just three examples:

Roofscapes (© John Rennie Short)

Charlotte Square  (© John Rennie Short)

Scottish Parliament  (© John Rennie Short)

Trip to China and South Korea

Visited China. I was based in Shanghai. One of the three big fast –paced metro regions in China, the two others are Beijing and Guangzhou. They constitute the heart of the new modernizing China. I gave talks at East China Normal University and Shanghai Normal University and talked with fellow academics and students.  Then took a three and half hour bullet train trip to Nanchang and give talks at Jiangxi University.  My hosts at all the universities were generous and the students inquiring and informed. I learned a lot.

Seoul (Photo: © John Rennie Short)

Then went to Seoul, South Korea for two days to take part in a seminar on the making of historical atlases. Managed only one day looking around the city. Visited Platform 61 a new arts cultural center in the north east of the city, where I listened to a band play a mix of reggae and ska with a Korean twist.

Old Shanghai (Photo: © John Rennie Short)

New Shanghai (Photo: © John Rennie Short)

Nanchang (Photo: © John Rennie Short)

Shanghai Railway Station (Photo: © John Rennie Short)