Keith Woodward

Education

PhD, University of Arizona, 2007

Interests

Social Theory; Continental Philosophy; Deleuze; Affect Theory; Site Ontology, Spatial Theory, and the Scale Debates; Radical, Critical, and Social Geography; Trans and Queer Theory; Speculative Geographies; Materialism, Events, and the Philosophy of Conditions; Cinematic Spaces; Social Movements and Social Change; Affect, Direct Action, and Political Ontology; Anti-histories of Geographic Thought; Art-Science Collaborations; Weird Geographies; Rabelaisian Lists…

Current Research

I am currently working on several book-length projects:

Affective Passing. This work calls into question several of the key assumptions that have crystalized within affect theory over the past two decades, especially those earnest approaches that regard affect as an empirically graspable object of scientific inquiry. In response, the monograph begins by tracing a genealogy of twentieth century scientific and philosophical approaches to the study of affect. It brings these into dialogue with a counter-history of frauds, fakers, and flimflammers who have approached affectivity as a tool of social manipulation. Through this dialogue, the monograph recenters the debate around the abiding ambiguities of affects and recharts their trajectories through the humanities and social sciences.

The Whole Onflow (G. J. Andrews, C. Duff, and K. Woodward). A monograph dedicated to the theorization of the concept of  “whole onflow,” a meta/physical extension of Ralph Pred’s Whiteheadian conceptualization of “onflow.” The volume will offer both a fleshed-out theorization and a practically-oriented treatment helpful to social scientists who might be eager to mobilize the concept in their research.

Ontologies of the Site. This monograph contributes to spatial theorizing from the perspective of difference and ‘the singular.’ Its centerpiece is a theoretical articulation of site ontology – something that was introduced in my early collaborations. Ontologies of the Site also broadly engages historic and contemporary philosophical encounters with space.

Courses

Geog101: Introduction to Human Geography
Geog300: Weird Geographies
Geog301: Revolutions and Social Change
Geog501: Space and Place
Geog501: Madison Atlas Project
Geog511: Critical Social Theory
Geog513: Queer Geographies
Geog515: Trans Autotheories
Geog566: The History of Geographic Thought
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Space, Affect, Percept (Spring 2010)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Things and Space (Spring 2011)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Anarchist Geographies (Spring 2012)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Mind and Ecology (Fall 2013)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Deleuze and Geophilosophy (Spring 2015)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Deleuze and Geophilosophy (Fall 2017)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: From the Ontological Turn to the Speculative Turn (Fall 2019)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Theorizing Futurity (Fall 2021)
Geog901: Grad Seminar: Fragments and Fabulations (Fall 2023)

Representative Publications

K. Woodward and J.P. Jones III. 2021. “Vortex and Void: Meta/Geophysics in Sedona.” In A Place More Void, P. Kingsbury and A.J. Secor, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 66-86.

K. Woodward. 2016. “The Speculative Geography of Orson Welles.” Cultural Geographies 23(2): 337-56.

K. Woodward, L. Vigdor, J.P. Jones III, H. Hawkins, S.A. Marston, and D.P. Dixon. 2015. “One Sinister Hurricane: Rethinking Collaborative Visualization,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105: 496-511.

K. Woodward and M. Bruzzone. 2015. “Touching Like a State,” Antipode 47(2): 539-56.

K. Woodward. 2014. “Affect, State Theory, and the Politics of Confusion,” Political Geography 41: 21-31.

K. Woodward. 2013. “Spacing Deconstruction,” In Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts, M. Caputi and V. Del Casino, eds. New York: Continuum, pp. 224-49.

M. Caputi, V. Del Casino, Jr., and K. Woodward. 2013. “Derrida, Deconstruction, and the University,” In Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts, M. Caputi and V. Del Casino, eds. New York: Continuum, pp. 13-36.

K. Woodward, J.P. Jones III, and Sallie A. Marston. 2012. “The Politics of Autonomous Space,” Progress in Human Geography 36(2): 204-24.

K. Woodward. 2011. “Affective Life,” In A Companion to Social Geography, V. Del Casino, R. Paneli, P. Cloke, and M. Thomas, eds. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 325-25.

K. Woodward, J.P. Jones III, and S.A. Marston. 2010. “Of Eagles and Flies: Orientations Toward the Micro,” Area 42(3): 271-80.

K. Woodward. 2010. “Events, Spontaneity and Abrupt Conditions,” In Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography, B. Anderson and P. Harrison, eds. Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 321-40.

K. Woodward and J. Lea. 2010. “Geographies of Affect,” In The Sage Handbook of Social Geographies, S. Smith, R. Pain, S.A. Marston and J.P. Jones III, eds. London: Sage, pp. 154-75.

D. Mayer and K. Woodward. 2009. “Composition and Felt Geographies.” In Composing Other Spaces, J.P. Tassoni and D.R. Powell, eds. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 103-20.

D. Dixon, K. Woodward, and J.P. Jones, III. 2008. “On the Other Hand…Dialectics,” Environment and Planning A, 40(11): 2549-61.

J.P. Jones III, K. Woodward, and S.A. Marston. 2007. “Situating Flatness,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32(2): 264-76.

S.A. Marston, K. Woodward, and J.P. Jones, III. 2007. “Flattening Ontologies of Globalization: The Nollywood Case,” Globalizations 4(1): 45-63.

S.A. Marston, J.P. Jones, III, and K. Woodward. 2005. “Human Geography without Scale,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30(4): 416-32.

K. Woodward and J.P. Jones, III. 2005. “On the Border with Deleuze and Guattari,” In B/ordering Space, H. van Houtum, O. Kramsch, and W. Zierhofer, eds. Hampshire: Ashgate, pp. 233-48.

Current Graduate Students

Erin Clancy (PhD)
Luke Leavitt (PhD)
Nguyễn T. Thuỳ-Trang (PhD)
Vignesh Ramachandran (PhD)