``This form of talk, which by no means is limited to the left - it is immensely popular in business schools, political science, economics, sociology etc. - is typically centered on a star/celebrity performer entertaining educated audiences with a talk show (often heavily illustrated with elaborated power point slides)'' Wojtek
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This is a totally wrong impression. Harvey does not come off as a guru. The guys that introduced him, appeared to know him pretty well. The atmosphere was a visiting friend of the department.
He had no presentations, graphs, or power point slides. He had no notes. What he wrote on the board were just words with some arrows to direct the conceptual grasp. The essential examples were taken from the current global crisis of societies around the world.
He actually made a little joke about not having much to show. He used this as a way to describe the vast changes of society over short periods and talked about using a typewriter and hand written notes in an eariler period. I was thinking the same thing. This was an `old fashion' lecture, the way I used to remember them. I didn't take notes. What I wrote, I did so, after coming home. Remember my studies were art, literature, anthropology and philosophy. I took notes in the technical courses like inductive logic. Otherwise I got in the habit of listening and then writing down what I remembered after class. I found these crude sketches helped direct the reading, where I really did take notes
There was one questioner who asked how Harvey would compare his work to some guy I never heard of. Harvey, paused. I don't know what to say, he said. I don't read other Marxists. I am afraid about all I read is Marx. He mentioned that he used to read in the field and mentioned The Conditions of Postmodernity as the period.
I think that was an effort to get Harvey to position himself in a pissing match, and he was refusing to do that.
The UCB Geography department is evidently loaded with Marxists. I asked the guy recording the lecture, if it would be put up on the web. He said it was up to the chairman of the department. Hope he puts it up.
This department is part of the College of Natural Resources, CNR. CNR incorporates Plant and Microbial Bio. where I worked briefly. CNR also house the agricultural sciences. So you can see it is tailor made for environmental-social issues.
His public lecture is over in the College of Environmental Design, which also houses city planning, architecture, and some other related majors, which is another locus of interest for Harvey.
CG