GEOG 1280 /GEOG 1200 Sept 11/2008 Lecture Outline

Telling a story of human geography Origins and evolution • Universal Geography and Humboldt • Geography as Academic Discipline Universal Geography 1800-1874 •Transition from geography as servant of exploration and empire to mature academic subject

•As universities spread, academic disciplines know today begin to emerge as defined fields of knowledge

Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859 “…my true purpose is to investigate the interaction of all the forces of nature.” •Dominated 19th century geography; one of most admired men of his time •Uniquely blended general concepts with precise observation •Conception of geography as an integrating science •Insistence that humans are part of nature and not separate

Humboldt •Traveled extensively through Central and South America –First to write a scientific description of Latin America •5 volume work ‘Kosmos’ interaction of all natural and human forces at play in the environment •‘…the last man who knew everything’ (Johnson 2005: 3) Institutionalization •University disciplines emerge in a complex intellectual environment –Mechanistic view of ‘science’ dominates –Effects of controversial ideas of Charles Darwin

•Must ‘stake claim’ by clearly defining the subject •1874 - First departments set up in German universities •1903 – First department in North America – University of Chicago

Friedrich Ratzel ‘Founder of Human Geography’ •First to focus solely on human-made landscape •‘anthropogeography’ •Emphasized humans as makers of landscapes •Introduced idea of human landscapes as ever-changing additions to an original physical landscape •Inspired by what he saw on extensive travels to North and South America in 1874-75

Prelude to Present: 1903-1970

•1) Physical geography as cause / environmental determinism –Discredited notion that physical environment dictates human cultures and landscapes –Accepted in early 20th century by too many as a self-evident truth •2) Humans and land •3) Regional studies •4) Spatial analysis Carl Sauer and the ‘Landscape School’ •‘Grandfather of cultural geography’ •Rejected environmental determinism

•Human groups transform physical landscapes over time and through choice •Ideas had huge, dominating effect - especially historical and cultural subdisciplines from 1923 until well into 1980s •Now revitalized with new social theory

Regional Studies •Popular focus of academic geography in the 19th century •Ultimate task of geography is to delimit regions (?)

Richard Hartshorne (1899-1992) American geographer –Published influential The Nature of Geography in 1939 –Geography as the study of ‘areal differentiation’ –Dominant paradigm for decades

Regional Studies Spatial Analysis •Starts with work of F.W. Schaefer in 1953 – “…geography has to be conceived as the science concerned with the formulation of the laws governing the spatial distribution of certain feature on the surface of the earth and these spatial arrangements of phenomena, not the phenomena themselves, should be the subject of geographers’ search for law-like statements”. •“Spatial science”

•“Quantitative revolution”