Professor Craig Young
Emeritus Professor
My profile
Biography
I am a Human Geographer with a wide variety of research and teaching interests! I have worked since the early 1990s on geographical change in the former Eastern Europe, looking at urban and socio-cultural changes during ‘post-socialist transformation’ after 1989. A particular focus is on the intersection of the past, heritage and the cultural politics of identity, from cities to the nation. I am also interested in urban policy, specifically policy making and responses in the area of the ‘creative city’ and the use of culture, particularly in European cities, notably Stockholm, Sweden. A third key area which I have developed recently is the engagement of Geography with the discipline of Death Studies, particularly understanding contemporary encounters with the dead body.
External examiner roles
PhD External Examiner at the universities of Hull, Gloucester, Exeter and Tartu, Estonia.
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
Reviewer for: Area, Regional Studies, Environment and Planning A, Environment and Planning B, Environment and Planning C, Environment and Planning D, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Social Geografie, European Urban and Regional Studies, Geography, Sociologica Ruralis, Journal of Historical Geography, The Geographical Journal, Political Geography, Geographica Polonica, Antipode, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, Urban Studies, European Journal of American Studies, GeoJournal, Geoforum, Urban Affairs Review, International Planning Studies, Moravian Geographical Reports, Social & Cultural Geography, Geography Compass, Urban Geography, International Political Sociology, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Polar Geography, Mortality, Safer Communities Journal, Geographica Helvetica, Problems of Post-Communism, Europe-Asia Studies, Bulletin of Geography (Poland), Cultural Geographies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
Member of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College.
Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, (FWO - Flanders Research Foundation, Belgium).
HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area).
Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation, Georgia.
Visiting and honorary positions
2012: Flaherty Visiting Research Fellow, Research Centre for Urban Cultural History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA.
2010: Invited Professor, GEOREG Summer School, University of Olomouc, Czech Republic.
2009-10: Guest Researcher, Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden.
2009: Visiting Professor, Department of Geography, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
2007: Visiting Professor, Department of Geography, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
2006: Visiting Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Neofit-Rilsky South-West University, Bulgaria.
1998: Visiting Professor, Department of Urban Geography, University of Lodz, Poland.
Editorial Board membership
Editor-in-Chief of Eurasian Geography and Economics
Editorial Board member for International Review of Social Research.
Editorial Board member for Human Geographies.
Projects
Co-organiser of public engagement event “Encountering Corpses II” 2016 at Manchester Southern Cemetery Crematorium Chapel.
Co-organiser of public engagement event “Encountering Corpses” 2014 at the Manchester Museum, including tours of Manchester’s Southern Cemetery and a photography exhibit and community arts project at Sacred Trinity Church, Salford. Project partners are Manchester Museum, Manchester Guided Tours and Sacred Trinity Church.
ESRC Research Seminar Series ‘Encountering Corpses’ engages with a number of professionals in the ‘death industry’ including funeral directors, embalmers, government officials and policy makers (Ministry of Justice and Human Tissue Authority), faith leaders and clergy.
Teaching
How I’ll teach you
I use a variety of methods and activities in class! Sometimes I lecture and sometimes it’s necessary to get some information across. Otherwise, for the most part I believe in a ‘co-production’ of knowledge ie. I don’t believe in standing up and lecturing ‘at you’, I think we should develop knowledge and ideas together through your thinking and discussion. I tend to use group activities, different kinds of activities in class (reading exercises, analysing short media pieces, discussion) so that we develop material together which can be summarised at the end.
My main teaching is on: Field and Research Techniques in Human Geography - qualitative methods in Human Geography, the Year 2 Berlin field trip; at third year level on history, memory, landscape, death and the politics of identity; supervising final year Projects on a variety of HG topics.
Why study…
I say study Human Geography because it is a fascinating and diverse subject which is of huge contemporary relevance to changes going on in the world around us! You can engage in a great variety of topics and explore things which fascinate you about society and the world in great depth. Students are often surprised - and then fascinated - by what Human Geographers get up to. While I work on cities I also work on death - that’s an area that I never imagined Human Geography would lead me to, but it has been immensely rewarding. It really is a subject where you can develop your own ideas and passions. It’s also a great subject for developing transferable skills, either for research and/or workplace.
Subject areas
Human Geography
Supervision
I supervise PhDs in a variety of areas of Human Geography. I have supervised 9 PhDs previously and am currently involved in a number of supervisions. These include topics such as national identity in Albania and exploring encounters with death in Dark Tourism.
Research outputs
Human geography. Qualitative methods.
Geographical change in post-socialist countries and regions, especially East and Central Europe.
City marketing, urban image and urban identity under capitalism and post-socialism.
History, memory and the cultural landscapes of state- and post-socialism.
The ‘creative city’ - creative city policy, understanding creativity as a locally contingent process, studying creative producers (Stockholm, Gdansk, UK).
Deathscapes and corpse geographies; contemporary encounters with dead bodies.