
Professor Keith Lilley
Professor
For media contact email comms.office@qub.ac.uk
or call +44(0)2890 973091.
Research Interests
My expertise lies in interpreting historic landscapes, maps, and built environments, in particular using geospatial technologies (eg. GNSS/GIS/GPS).
For more than a decade I have led cross-disciplinary research projects mapping and evaluating historic fabric and form of towns and cities in Britain and Ireland, collaborating with research organisations, non-academic partners and local communities through public engagement activities and the development of web-based resources (eg see http://www.qub.ac.uk/urban_mapping/; http://www.medievalchester.ac.uk/; http://www.medievalswansea.ac.uk/en/; http://discover.medievalchester.ac.uk/). I also have made a significant contribution to the history of cartography and digital mapping, creating online map-based web-resources to help broaden access to and use of historic maps (eg. seehttp://www.goughmap.org/; http://ria.ie/digitalatlasderry).
I am currently chair of the Historic Towns Trust (HTT), a charitable organisation that oversees the production of the British Historic Towns Atlas series (see http://historictownsatlas.org.uk/) as part of the wider international European historic towns atlases project (seehttp://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/hta-programme) established in 1955.
My books include:
• Urban Life in the Middle Ages: 1000-1450 (Palgrave, 2002)
• City and Cosmos: The Medieval World in Urban Form (Reaktion, 2009)
• Mapping Medieval Geographies (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
I am currently completing a new book, called Sovereign Spaces: Survey, Statecraft and Ruling the Realm under the Plantagenet Kings, which uses ‘rule’ as both power and measure to explore how medieval monarchs exercised sovereignty and governed their realms.
My current funded research projects include:
• ‘Living Legacies 1914-18: From Past Conflict to Shared Future’ – an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded public engagement centre based at Queen’s University Belfast to foster collaborations between academic and community researchers on heritage of World War 1 – for more information see http://www.livinglegacies1914-18.ac.uk/
• ‘Mapping Lineages: Quantifying the Evolution of Maps of the British Isles’ – a Leverhulme Trust funded project in collaboration with University of Liverpool and National University of Ireland Maynooth, in partnership with the British Library, to result in a new interactive mapping platform allowing users to navigate the changing nature of cartography of Britain and Ireland.
• ‘Inventor of Britain: The Complete Works of Humphrey Llwyd’ – an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project in collaboration with University of Exeter and National Library of Wales, to explore Humphrey Llwyd’s work as a Renaissance geographer and cartographer at a particularly exciting point in the long history of European cartography.
• ‘Surveying Empires – Archaeologies of Colonial Cartography’ – a project funded by the British Academy exploring the material cultures of surveying and map-making in India through the field-practices the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, evaluating and interpreting the sites, locales and landscape legacies of ‘colonial cartography’ in a post-colonial world.
Achievements and Distinctions
Awards and Distinctions
- Institute Fellow, The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, QUB, 2016-
- Institute Fellow, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities (ICRH), QUB, 2013
- Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA, 2008
- Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 2006-7
- British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, 1996-1999
Elected and appointed positions on external research bodies:
- Chair, Historic Towns Trust/British Historic Towns Atlas, 2014-
- Board Member, International Commission of the History of Towns (ICHT), 2011-
- Chair, ‘Spatial Technologies and the Medieval City’ (STeMCity) research network, 2011-13
- UK Co-representative, General Assembly of the International Commission of the History of Towns (ICHT), 2010-
- Board member, British Historic Towns Atlas Committee, 2006-
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHS), elected 2005.
- Council Officer (Treasurer), 2005-2008, International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF)
- Conference officer, 1997-2000, Historical Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society.
- Committee member, 1998-2000, 2003-2006, Medieval Settlement Research Group.
Teaching
Current Teaching:
GGY2053 Maps and Mappings: from the Stone Age to the Digital Age (Module Coordinator)
GGY2002 GIS and Landscapes
Current Administrative Roles
School of NBE, Director of Research ('Culture & Society')
- Published
Landscape mapping and symbolic form: drawing as a creative medium in cultural geography
Research output: Research › Chapter
- Published
Decline or decay? Urban landscapes in late-medieval England
Research output: Research › Chapter
- Published
Exploring change in urban areas using GIS: data sources, linkages and problems
Research output: Research - peer-review › Article
- Published
A silent witness? Medieval urban landscapes and unfolding their mapping histories
Research output: Research - peer-review › Article
- Published
Maps of Medieval Thought? Cartographical Imaginaries, Cultural Symbolism and Urban Forms of the Late Middle Ages
Research output: Research - peer-review › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
- Published
Mapping Medieval Geographies: Geographical Encounters in the Latin West and Beyond, 300–1600
Research output: Research › Book
- Published
City and Cosmos: The Medieval World in Urban Form
Research output: Research › Book
Frequent Journals
Urban History
ISSNs: 0963-9268
Additional searchable ISSN (Electronic): 1469-8706
Cambridge University Press
Scopus rating (2016): CiteScore 0.56 SJR 0.222 SNIP 1.177
Journal
Landscape Research
ISSNs: 0142-6397
Routledge
Scopus rating (2016): CiteScore 1.01 SJR 0.467 SNIP 0.713
Journal
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
ISSNs: 0263-7758
Additional searchable ISSN (Electronic): 1472-3433
Pion Ltd.
Scopus rating (2016): CiteScore 2.06 SJR 1.857 SNIP 1.354
Journal
Urban Morphology
ISSNs: 1027-4278
International Seminar on Urban Form
Scopus rating (2016): CiteScore 0.34 SJR 0.191 SNIP 1.622
Journal
Planning Perspectives
ISSNs: 0266-5433
Additional searchable ISSN (Electronic): 1466-4518
Routledge
Scopus rating (2016): CiteScore 0.54 SJR 0.47 SNIP 1.545
Journal
Swansea Project
Project: Research
Revisiting New Towns of the Middle Ages - a conference and field seminar
Activity: Talk or presentation › Public lecture/debate/seminar
Castle towns and conquerors conference
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
The Language of Maps
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
Unravelling historical geographies of British cartography: The uses of GIS in quantifying and comparing changes in medieval and modern maps and map-making - research seminar
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
11th European Urban History Conference
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
Unravelling historical geographies of British cartography
Activity: Talk or presentation › Public lecture/debate/seminar
CULTURES ET IDÉOLOGIES URBAINES DANS LES ANCIENS PAYS-BAS
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
Arizona State University
Activity: Visiting an external institution › Research and Teaching at External Organisation
International Medieval Congress
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
'Finding your place in history and politics: the life of universal chronicles in the high Middle Ages' - workshop funded by the British Academy
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
PhD External Examiner
Activity: Examination › PhD external examination
Flemish Government Funding Agency (Innovation by Science & Technology) (External organisation)
Activity: Membership › Membership of peer review panel or committee
‘Mapping Places: Spaces of flow in medieval geographic thought and practice’, Oxford Late Medieval Seminar Series
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Looking behind the map - a public lecture
Activity: Talk or presentation › Public lecture/debate/seminar
Polish National Science Centre (External organisation)
Activity: Membership › Membership of peer review panel or committee
Mapping the March - public lecture
Activity: Talk or presentation › Public lecture/debate/seminar
International Medieval Congress
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
Historic Towns Trust
Activity: Consultancy, business and community engagement › Contribution to the work of national or international committees and working groups
Quantifying Cartographic Evolution: Mapping Lineages in Medieval and Early-Modern Britain and Ireland (1250-1650)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Council Member, International Commission for the History of Towns
Activity: Consultancy, business and community engagement › Contribution to the work of national or international committees and working groups
Urban History (Journal)
Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editorial activity
Institute Fellow, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, QUB
Prize: Fellowship awarded competitively
Leverhulme Research Fellowship
Prize: Fellowship awarded competitively
Mapping medieval geographies conference, UCLA
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Contribution to conference papers, events and activities
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