Dr. Tim Edensor is Reader in Cultural Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has written several influential books in the fields of urban studies and cultural geography, including: Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (2005), Tourists at the Taj (1998), and National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (2002). He edited Geographies of Rhythm (2010), and co-edited Spaces of Vernacular Creativity: Rethinking the Cultural Economy (2009), and A World of Cities: Urban Theory Beyond the West (2011). His current research focusses on spaces of illumination and darkness, including work on Christmas lights, light festivals, and the apprehension of dark space.

On October 29^th, he will be giving a paper entitled: 'Light Festivals: producing defamiliarisation, belonging, interactivity and atmosphere' in Room A0.28 of Millburn House.