School of Geography
 

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Stephen Legg

Professor of Historical Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Biography

I undertook my undergraduate degree, ESRC-funded doctorate and Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Since moving to Nottingham my research has been funded by a Philip Leverhulme Prize, a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, and an AHRC Research Grant. I have taken up visiting research fellowships at Queen Mary, London, the State University of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study at JNU, New Delhi.

Spaces of Colonialism - Delhi's Urban Governmentalities by S Legg | WHSmith Prostitution and the Ends of Empire: Scale, Governmentalities, and Interwar India: Amazon.co.uk: Legg, Stephen: 9780822357735: Books Round table conference geographies constituting colonial india interwar london | South Asian history | Cambridge University Press South Asian Governmentalities Subaltern Geographies Placing Internationalism: International Conferences and the Making of the Modern World: Histories of Internationalism Stephen Legg Bloomsbury Academic Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos (Interventions): Amazon.co.uk: Legg, Stephen: 9780415600675: Books

Teaching Summary

I teach across a range of modules concentrating on cultural, historical and critical geography:

GEOG1003 Exploring Human Geography

GEOG2017 Cultural and Historical Geography (convenor)

GEOG2034 Urban Geography

GEOG3017 Geographies of Violence

Research Summary

Further information on my research can be found at my personal website: https://stephenleggeog.wordpress.com/.

Publications can also be accessed at my Academia.edu page, Researchgate.net page, and Google scholar page.

I am keen to supervise PhD students on the following topics

  • Colonial urbanism, especially in South Asia
  • Anti-Colonial Nationalism and its geographical expressions
  • The geographies of sexuality, in contemporary and historical settings
  • The historical geographies of constitutionalism
  • Interwar internationalism and its spaces of expression and experience
  • Applications of governmentality theory and postcolonial studies to geographical case studies and approaches

LEGG, STEPHEN, Geography's Foucault. In: LORENZINI, DANIELE, ed., The Foucauldian Mind Routledge. (In Press.)

LEGG, STEPHEN, (In Press.) Enfolding empire into 1930s London: the India Round Table Conference Urban History.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2024. Who were the Early Globalisers?: The Historical Geographies of India in Interwar London Geography Review. 37(4), 37-39

GUPTA, CHARU and LEGG,. STEPHEN, 2024. Communal Geographies: An Introduction South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 46(6), 1168-1183

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2024. How to talk about British colonialism in the middle of a culture war Journal of Historical Geography. 84, 154-159

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2025. Mapping, Geography Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 50(1) e12707

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2024. Contesting monuments:: Heritage and historical geographies of inequality, an introduction Journal of Historical Geography.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2023. Round Table Conference Geographies: Constituting Colonial India in Interwar London Cambridge University Press.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2023. Carceral and Colonial Domesticities: Subaltern Case Geographies of a Delhi Rescue Home Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 41(6), 960 - 977

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2023. Cocktails, curry and afternoon tea: Inside the 1930s London conference that brought Gandhi to Buckingham Palace The Conversation. Available at: <https://theconversation.com/cocktails-curry-and-afternoon-tea-inside-the-1930s-london-conference-that-brought-gandhi-to-buckingham-palace-199650>

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2023. Hindu Nationalism in the International: BS Moonje's Travel Writing at the Round Table Conference. In: LEAKE, ELIZABETH and GUYOT-RÉCHARD, BÉRÉNICE, eds., South Asia Unbound: New International Histories of the Subcontinent De Gruyter. 227-245

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2023. Colonial Governmentality Appraised, from the Danish West Indies" Historisk tidskrift. 143(4), 647-654

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2022. An emerging India came alive in imperial London At: Hindustan Times

JAKE HODDER, MICHAEL HEFFERNAN and STEPHEN LEGG, 2021. The Archival Geographies of Twentieth Century Internationalism: Nation, Empire and Race Journal of Historical Geography. 71, 1-11

MIKE HEFFERNAN, JAKE HODDER, STEPHEN LEGG and BENJAMIN THORPE, 2021. Introduction. In: Placing Internationalism: International Conferences and the Making of the Modern World 1-10

HEFFERNAN, MIKE, LEGG, STEPHEN, HODDER, JAKE and THORPE, BENJAMIN J, 2021. Toward an Historical Geography of International Conferencing. In: LEGG, STEPHEN, HEFFERNAN, MIKE, HODDER, JAKE and THORPE, BENJAMIN J, eds., Placing Internationalism: International Conferences and the Making of the Modern World Bloomsbury. 11-38

LEGG, STEPHEN, HEFFERNAN, MIKE, HODDER, JAKE and THORPE, BENJAMIN J, eds., 2021. Placing Internationalism: International Conferences and the Making of the Modern World Bloomsbury.

LEGG, STEPHEN and CITIZENS, NOTTINGHAM, 2021. 'No place for hate': community-led research and the geographies of Nottingham citizens' hate crime commission SOCIAL & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY. 22(8), 1164-1186

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2020. "Political Atmospherics": the India Round Table Conference's Atmospheric Environments, Bodies and Representations, London 1930-32 Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 110(3), 774-792

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2020. Imperial Internationalism: The Round Table Conference and the Making of India in London, 1930-32 Humanity. 11(1), 32-53

2020. Political lives at sea: working and socialising to and from the India Round Table Conference in London, 1930-1932 Journal of Historical Geography. 68, 21-32

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2020. Population, Mobility, and Moral Regulation. In: DOMOSH, MONA, HEFFERNAN, MIKE and WITHERS, CW, eds., The SAGE Handbook of Historical Geography SAGE. 357-375

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2019. Subjects of truth: Resisting governmentality in Foucault's 1980s Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 37(1), 27-45

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2019. Global Governance and Place Making: India, Internationalism and Empire in 1930s London Geography. Spring, 4-11

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2019. A Pre-Partitioned City?: Anti-Colonial and Communal Mohallas in Interwar Delhi South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 42(1), 170-187

GOULD, WILLIAM and LEGG, STEPHEN, 2019. Spaces before Partition: An Introduction South Asia:: Journal of South Asian Studies. 42(1), 69-79

JAZEEL, TARIQ and LEGG, STEPHEN, eds., 2019. Subaltern Geographies University of Georgia Press.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2019. Subaltern Studies, Space, and the Geographical Imagination. In: JAZEEL, TARIQ and LEGG, STEPHEN, eds., Subaltern Geographies University of Georgia Press. 1-35

STEPHEN LEGG and DEANA HEATH, eds., 2018. South Asian Governmentalities: Michel Foucault and the Question of Postcolonial Orderings Cambridge University Press.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2018. Colonial and Nationalist Truth Regimes: Empire, Europe and the Latter Foucault. In: STEPHEN LEGG and DEANA HEATH, eds., South Asian Governmentalities: Michel Foucault and the Question of Postcolonial Orderings Cambridge University Press. 106-133

HEATH, DEANA and LEGG, STEPHEN, 2018. Introducing South Asian governmentalities. In: LEGG, STEPHEN and HEATH, DEANA, eds., South Asian Governmentalities: Michel Foucault and the Question of Postcolonial Orderings Cambridge University Press. 1-36

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2017. Decolonialism Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 42(3), 345-348

NEWBIGIN, ELEANOR, SHANI, ORNIT and LEGG, STEPHEN, 2016. Constitutionalism and the Evolution of Democracy in India Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 36(1), 42-43

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2016. Dyarchy: Democracy, Autocracy and the Scalar Sovereignty of Interwar India Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 36(1), 44-65

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2016. Subject to truth: Before and after governmentality in Foucault's 1970s Environment and Planning D: Society & Space. 34, 858-879

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2016. Empirical and analytical subaltern space?: Ashrams, brothels and trafficking in colonial Delhi 30(4), 793-815

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2016. Anti-Vice Lives: Peopling the Archives of Prostitution in Interwar India. In: PLILEY, JESSICA R, KRAMM-MASOKA, ROBERT and FISCHER-TINÉ, HARALD, eds., Fighting Drink, Drugs, and 'Immorality': Global Anti-Vice Activism, c. 1890-1950 Cambridge University Press. 246-269

JAKE HODDER, STEPHEN LEGG and MIKE HEFFERNAN, 2015. Introduction: Historical Geographies of Internationalism, 1900-1950 Political Geography. 49, 1-6

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2014. City as a Site of Movements'. In: NAIR, JANAKI, ed., Urbanization in India Indira Gandhi National Open University.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2014. An international anomaly?: Sovereignty, the League of Nations and India's princely geographies Journal of Historical Geography. 43, 96-110

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2014. Prostitution and the Ends of Empire: Scale, Governmentalities, and Interwar India Duke University Press.

LEGG, S. and ROY, S., 2013. Neo-Liberalism, Post-Colonialism and Hetero-Sovereignties: Emergent Sexual Formations in Contemporary India Interventions: International Journal for Postcolonial Studies. 15(4), 461-473

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2013. Planning Social Hygiene: From Contamination to Contagion in Interwar India. In: PECKHAM, ROBERT and POMFRET, DAVID, eds., Imperial Contagions: Medicine and Cultures of Planning in Asia, 1880-1949 Hong Kong University Press. 105-122

LEGG, STEPHEN and BROWN, MICHEL, 2013. Moral Regulation: Scale and Historical Geography Journal of Historical Geography. 42, 134-139

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2012. Stimulation, segregation and scandal: geographies of prostitution regulation in British India, between registration (1888) and suppression (1923) Modern Asian Studies. 46(6), 1459-1505

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2012. "The life of individuals as well as of nations": international law and the League of Nations' anti-trafficking governmentalities Leiden Journal of International Law. 25(3), 647-664

STEPHEN LEGG, PATRICIA EHRKAMP, JEREMY CRAMPTON, BERND BELINA, NEIL SMITH and MATTHEW G. HANNAH, 2012. Reading Matthew G. Hannah's Dark Territory in the Information Age: Learning from the West German Census Controversies of the 1980s Political Geography. 31(3), 184-193

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2011. Governance - Part II. In: AGNEW, JOHN A and DUNCAN, JAMES S, eds., The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Human Geography Wiley-Blackwell. 347-360

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2011. Violent memories: South Asian spaces of postcolonial anamnesis. In: MEUSBURGER, P, HEFFERNAN, M and WUNDER, E, eds., Cultural Memories 287-303

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2011. Assemblage/Apparatus: using Deleuze and Foucault Area. 43(2), 128-133

LEGG, STEPHEN, ed., 2011. Spatiality, sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: geographies of the Nomos Routledge.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2011. Legal geographies and the state of imperialism: environments, constitutions, and violence Journal of Historical Geography. 37(4), 505-508

LEGG, STEPHEN and VASUDEVAN, ALEX, 2011. Introduction: Geographies of the Nomos. In: LEGG, STEPHEN, ed., Sovereignty, Spatiality, and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos Routledge. 1-24

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2011. Security, territory and colonial populations: town and empire in Foucault's 1978 lecture course. In: TEVERSON, ANDREW, and UPSTONE, SARAH, eds., Postcolonial Spaces: The Politics of Place in Contemporary Culture Palgrave Macmillan. 146-163

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2010. An intimate and imperial feminism: Meliscent Shephard and the regulation of prostitution in colonial India Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 28(1), 68-94

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2010. Transnationalism and the Scalar Politics of Imperialism New Global Studies. 4(1), 1-7

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2009. Governing Prostitution in Colonial Delhi: from Cantonment Regulations to International Hygiene (1864-1939) Social History. 34(4), 447-467

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2009. Of scales, networks and assemblages: the League of Nations apparatus and the scalar sovereignty of the Government of India Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 34(2), 234-253

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2009. An 'Indispensible hypodermis'?: The role of scale in The Birth of Biopolitics 2(1&2), 219-225

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2008. Ambivalent improvements: biography, biopolitics, and colonial Delhi Environment and Planning A. advance online publication, 37-56

LEGG, STEPHEN. and MCFARLANE, C., 2008. Ordinary urban spaces: between postcolonialism and development Environment and Planning A. VOL 40(NUMB 1), 6-14

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2007. Spaces of colonialism: Delhi's urban governmentalities Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell.

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2007. Beyond the European Province: Foucault and Postcolonialism. In: CRAMPTON, J. and ELDEN, S, eds., Space, Knowledge, and Power:: Foucault and Geography Ashgate. 265-289

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2007. Reviewing geographies of memory/forgetting Environment and Planning A. 39(2), 456-466

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2006. Postcolonial Developmentalities: From the Delhi Improvement Trust to the Delhi Development Authority. In: Colonial and post-colonial geographies of India Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks. 182-204

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2006. Governmentality, Congestion, and Calculation in Colonial Delhi Social and Cultural Geography. 7(5), 709-729

LEGG, STEPHEN. Contesting and surviving memory: space, nation, and nostalgia in Les Lieux de Memoire Environment and Planning D: Society & Space. 23(4), 481-504

LEGG, STEPHEN. Foucault's Population Geographies: Classifications, Biopolitics and Governmental Spaces Population, Space and Place. 11(3), 137-156

LEGG, STEPHEN. Sites of Counter-Memory: the Refusal to Forget and the Nationalist Struggle in Colonial Delhi Historical Geography. 33, 180-201

LEGG, STEPHEN and DUNCAN, N., 2004. Social Class. In: A Companion to Cultural Geography Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, New York. 250-264

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2004. Memory and nostalgia Cultural Geographies. VOL 11(NUMB 1), 99-107

LEGG, STEPHEN, 2003. Gendered Politics and Nationalised Homes: women and the anticolonial struggle in Delhi, 1930-47 Gender, Place and Culture. 10(1), 7-28

Past Research

My past research has used Michel Foucault's recently translated governmentality lectures to analyse the landscapes of colonial ordering in interwar Delhi. These studies examined the spatial politics of Delhi as capital of the British Raj. Residential segregation, policing, and urban improvement were studied as ways of exploring the nature of colonial urban rule in Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi's Urban Governmentalities (2007). Further papers explored the biographies of British reformers, a comparison of planning ideologies, the postcolonial legacies of colonial governmentalities, and the translatability of Foucault's work to South Asia. These were followed by a project based around the writings of Carl Schmitt, focused on an edited book entitledSpatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos: (2011). The chapters consider Schmitt's 1950 work The Nomos of the Earth, which explored the role of law in appropriating, producing and distributing space.

In September 2014 I published Prostitution and the Ends of Empire: Scale, Governmentalities and Interwar India (Duke University Press). This consists of a multi-scalar analysis of the regulation of prostitution in India between the wars. it combines detailed case studies of Delhi, national legislation, the campaign of the Associations for Moral and Social Hygiene, and the influence of the League of Nations. Its aim is to explain the shift from policies favouring the segregation of brothels and prostitutes to the advocacy of suppressing brothels in the hope of reducing traffic in women and children.

The summer of 2015 saw the launch of a major AHRC funded project. Running for five years, "Conferencing the International: a cultural and historical geography of the origins of internationalism (1919-1939)" studies liberal, radical and imperial forms of internationalism as manifested in their conference spaces in the years between the wars. Work is continuing on the outputs from this project. See the project home page, permanent "Spaces of Internationalism" exhibition, and website resources concerning the Indian Round Table Conference. 2023 saw the publication of Round Table Conference Geographies: Constituting Colonial India in Interwar London.

Future Research

My future research will focus on anti-colonial social and political movements in interwar Delhi. It will complement my earlier work on the Indian National Congress party in the city with comparative studies of different political geographies of the city. These will consider more fully the impact of the Muslim League, Communist and Trade Union organisations, student groupings, and Hindu Nationalists. Other ongoing research interests address south Asian governmentalities, subaltern theory and the scalar sovereignty of constitutional reform in interwar India.

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