open university

In this first episode, you will learn who Doreen Massey was and get a sneak peek at her politics. We’ll hear from Massey’s former collaborators, friends and colleagues. And from Massey herself.

For nearly three decades, Massey was a professor at The Open University and “loved every minute of it”. The OU’s aim has been to literally open up access to higher education for a wider variety of people. Our approach with this podcast is similar: you don’t need to come prepared – and you certainly don’t need an academic degree to listen to it.

Knowledge and politics can be produced in a wide variety of places. What intellectual spaces have you encountered or actively created beyond the classroom? Please use this form to share your reflections with us.

Episode Credits
Host: Agata Lisiak
Guests: John Allen, Ash Amin, David Featherstone, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Tariq Jazeel, Linda McDowell, Tracey Skelton, Hilary Wainwright
Also Featured: Doreen Massey
Writer and Producer: Agata Lisiak
Senior Editor: Susan Stone
Sound Producer: Reece Cox
Production Assistant: Adèle Martin
Music: Studio R
Artwork: Bose Sarmiento
Special Thanks: The Open University, Michael Chanan 
In partnership with: The Sociological Review Foundation
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation

Find more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review.

Doreen Massey’s essays and interviews quoted in this episode:

• Doreen Massey speaking about London, extract from Secret City, dir. Michael Chanan, 2012 
• “I feel as if I've been able to reinvent myself” – a biographical interview with Doreen Massey, by Tim Freytag and Michael Hoyler, Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg, 1998 
• Understanding cities – Doreen Massey interviewed by Bob Catterall, City, 2000 
• Space, Place, and Politics – opening remarks, The Open University, 2009 
• The Possibilities of a Politics of Place Beyond Place? A Conversation with Doreen Massey, Human Geography Research Group, Sophie Bond, David Featherstone, Scottish Geographical Journal, 2009 
• Liverpool's football activists are part of a wider social movement, The Guardian, 2010 

Selected tributes and obituaries:

• Hilary Wainwright, “How we will miss that chuckle”: my friend, Doreen Massey 
• Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, The Doreen Massey we knew 
• Emma Jackson, Keeping one eye on the bus: A tribute to Doreen Massey
• David Featherstone, Doreen Massey obituary

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▷ Honey I Blew Up The Podcast! We are no longer recording new episodes of this podcast

▷ Host Dan Kirby has sold his shares in The Tech Dept (the business he blew up & turned around) to launch Founders Are Mental - teaching tech founders how to become Zen-like without being a monk...

▷ Show sponsors The Tech Dept are still going strong - helping founders build tech from MVP to Scale

Photo provided with thanks from FeelFarBig Magazine

We are back to our regularly scheduled programming! Episode 26 sees the much awaited match-up between the Open University and Birkbeck,  the only mature teams this series. Did both teams impress us as much as they did in their first round? Are age and wisdom the secret ingredients to winning it all? Did we confuse the garotte and the gavotte? Listen on till the end for the return of the best-dressed segment.

We are back once again for the third round of the 2020/2021 University Challenge series. This time, we have a real contrast of a competition between Open University, the largest UK university, and Linacre College, one of the smallest post-grad colleges of Oxford University. With an average age of 52, will Open's team win out against Linacre? The answer might well surprise you.