Professor Kris Olds
Professor of Geography
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Geography
550 North Park Street, Science Hall
Madison, WI 53706
Tel: (608) 262-5685
Email: olds@geography.wisc.edu
Website: http://krisolds.wordpress.com/
Doctoral Degree:
University of Bristol, Human Geography Ph.D. 1996.
Academic Areas of Interest:
My research primarily focuses on the geographical organization of power in relation to contemporary socio-economic and spatial transformations. The geographic context for my research is the broad Asia-Pacific/Pacific Rim region, and the interdependent skein of global cities spread around the globe. I am particularly interested in how institutions (including firms and universities) and elite social formations operate across distant space; how institutions, elite social formations, and the processes of which they are a part, produce distinct spaces and places through their operation; and what the role of the global city is in the geographical organization of power.
On-Campus Affiliations:
Managing Editor, New Directions in Southeast Asian Studies Book Series, University of Wisconsin Press
Faculty Coordinator, Canadian Studies Initiative, UW-Madison
Faculty Coordinator (on leave), Worldwide Universities Network, UW-Madison
Faculty Associate, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Faculty Associate, Global Studies
Faculty Associate and Advisory Committee Member, Center for European Studies
Faculty Associate, Center for East Asian Studies
Faculty Associate, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Faculty Associate, Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education
Member, Steering Committee, Summer Institute in Economic Geography
Current Research Projects:
I am currently working on a number of research projects. These include both independent research and collaborative research. Select initiatives are listed below.
Also, please visit my current research-based blog: GlobalHigherEd : Surveying the Construction of Global Knowledge/Spaces for the ‘Knowledge Economy’.
Global Assemblage: Singapore, Western Universities, and the Socio-Economic Development Process (click on link for detailed description)
The Global Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy: Regionalisms, Regional Linkages, and Higher Education Restructuring in Asia & Europe (click on link for detailed description)
International Events and Forced Evictions: a Focus on the Olympic Games (click on link for detailed description)
Recent and Representative Publications:
Yeung, H., and Olds, K. (eds) (2000) The Globalisation of Chinese Business Firms , London/NY: Macmillan/St.Martin's Press.
Dicken, P., Kelly, PF, Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2001) 'Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards an analytical framework for the global economy', Global Networks , 1(2): 89-112.
Olds, K. (2001) Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture and Pacific Rim Mega-Projects , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olds, K. (2001) 'Practices for "process geographies"', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 19(2): 127-136.
Thrift, N., and Olds, K. (2001) 'Pour une redefinition de l'economique en géographie économique', in J.F. Staszak et al (eds.) Géographie Anglo-Saxonnes: Tendances Contemporaines , Paris: Belin, pp. 174-189.
Coe, N. Kelly, PF., and Olds, K. (2003) 'Globalization, transnationalism and the Asia-Pacific' in J. Peck and H. Yeung (eds) Remaking the Global Economy , London: Sage.
Olds, K., and Thrift, N. (2005) 'Cultures on the brink: reengineering the soul of capitalism - on a global scale', in A. Ong and S. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems , Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 270-290.
Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2004) 'Pathways to global city formation: a view from the developmental city-state of Singapore', Review of International Political Economy . 11(3): 489-521
Olds, K., and Thrift, N. (2005) 'Assembling the "global schoolhouse' in Pacific Asia', in P. Daniels, K.C. Ho, and T. Hutton (eds.) Service Industries, Cities and Development Trajectories in the Asia-Pacific , London: Routledge.
Olds, K. (2005) 'Articulating agendas and traveling principles in the layering of new strands of academic freedom in contemporary Singapore', in B. Czarniawska and G. Sevón (eds.) Where Translation is a Vehicle, Imitation its Motor, and Fashion Sits at the Wheel: How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy , Malmö : Liber AB , pp. 167-189.
Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2006) 'Pathways to global city formation: a view from the developmental city-state of Singapore', in N. Brenner and R. Keil (eds.) The Global Cities Reader , London: Routledge, pp. 392-399.
Kelly, PF., and Olds, K. (2007) 'Studying elites and workers in transnational networks' in T. Barnes, E. Sheppard, and J. Peck (eds .) Politics and Practice in Economic Geography , London: Sage.
Olds, K. (2007) 'Global assemblage: Singapore, Western universities, and the construction of a global education hub', World Development.
Foster, J., Muellerleile, C., Olds, K., Peck, J. (2007) 'Circulating economic geographies: citation patterns and citation behaviour in economic geography, 1982-2006', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers .
Peck, J., and Olds, K. (2007) ‘The Summer Institute in Economic Geography’, Economic Geography, 83(3): 309-318.
Courses Taught:
Geog 101 Introduction to Human Geography
Geog 302 Global Economic Geographies
Geog/Urpl 305 Introduction to the City
Geog/Urpl 505 Global Cities/World Cities
Geog 510 Economic Geography
Geog 675/901 Cities and Development
View all geography course descriptions
