University of Plymouth - Mark Blacksell Lecture 2026: Imperial urban geopolitics

This is a public research lecture given by Professor James Sidaway (National University of Singapore) as part of the Mark Blacksell Lecture series at the University of Plymouth. The talk, titled "Imperial urban geopolitics", examines how empires, war and other large-scale geopolitical processes are folded into everyday urban fabrics and explores the idea of the "imperial urban" across diverse places such as Makkah, the Pearl River Delta, Silicon Valley, Yangon and Singapore's cross-border regions.

The lecture situates Plymouth's wartime destruction and wider worldly entanglements within debates about imperial cities, geopolitics and planetary urbanization, and reflects on Mark Blacksell's earlier work on bombing and urban geography. It is aimed at a public audience including scholars, students and members of the community interested in human geography, urban studies and geopolitics.

Following the lecture, light refreshments will be provided. For queries about the event, contact richard. yarwood@plymouth.

ac. uk.