Ridgeway-Dissertation-2017
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THE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC TOPOGRAPHY: TEACHING PEOPLE TO APPRECIATE ORDINARY PLACES USING BOOKS AND NEW MEDIA A Dissertation by JASON RANDALL RIDGEWAY Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Jonathan M. Smith Committee Members, Peter J. Hugill Sarah Witham Bednarz Carlos K. Blanton Head of Department, David M. Cairns August 2017 Major Subject: Geography Copyright 2017 Jason Randall Ridgeway ABSTRACT People have a deep need to connect to places, but modernity has weakened many of the traditional ways that people have bonded with localities. Geographers of the past believed that a core responsibility of geography was to describe places. This connection between geography and place education, however, has attenuated as geographers have become increasingly concerned with theory and have eschewed regional geography. This research seeks to revitalize the geographic tradition of topography (writing about small places) by examining its best works, while at the same time exploring new ways to connect people with places. It answers the question, “What lessons can we learn about place writing for non-academic audiences from the genre’s best examples, and how can these lessons inform the use of new media to connect people with places?” Examples of excellent topographic books and audio podcasts were analyzed to answer this question. Based on a study of the topographic tradition, literature on place attachment, and an empirical examination of topographic books, three essential features of a modern public topography are proposed: 1) topography teaches people to appreciate particular places; 2) topography engages the general public; and 3) topography is inherently geographical. Topographic works that incorporate these elements are found to use one or more of three strategies for facilitating the appreciation of place: 1) an explanatory strategy; 2) a poetic strategy; 3) or an experiential strategy. Specific recommendations for the application of these features and strategies to topographic writing are given. ii These essential features and strategies were used to analyze audio podcasts about small places. The result is a series of recommendations for the creation of topographic podcasts. To illustrate the utility of these recommendations, a podcast about the influence of the Brazos River on the landscape of Texas’s Brazos Valley was produced, along with an accompanying webpage. This research suggests that while modernity has created significant obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Prof. Smith, and my committee members, Prof. Hugill, Prof. Bednarz, and Prof. Blanton, for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research. I would also like to thank Dr. Kenna Lang Archer, Dr. Jim Kimmel, Mr. Brandon Franke, Mr. David Lewis, Mr. John Granger, and Mr. Adam Arnold for allowing me to interview them for my podcast. Thanks also to the following people for serving as a test audience for my podcast: Teresa Ridgeway, Sarah Trimble, Andy Evans, Rosie Dwight, Alison Hanson, Trey Murphy, Catherine Nosacka, and David Nosacka. Finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Teresa, and my children, Sam and Cate, for being generally amazing. iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors This work was supervised by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Jonathan M. Smith, Professor Peter J. Hugill, and Professor Sarah Witham Bednarz of the Department of Geography, and Professor Carlos Blanton of the Department of History. Much of the information on the history of English and American topography was provided by Professor Smith. All other work conducted for the dissertation was completed by the student independently. Funding Sources Graduate study was supported by the United States Army and the United States Military Academy (USMA). The contents of this dissertation are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of either the U.S. Army or USMA. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES ............................................................. v TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER II WHY THE WORLD NEEDS PLACE ATTACHMENT .......................... 4 Place Attachment and the Erosion of Place ................................................................... 4 The Arguments Against Place Attachment .................................................................. 19 The Importance of Place Attachment .......................................................................... 29 What Are the Stakes? ................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER III PLACE APPRECIATION AND PUBLIC TOPOGRAPHY ................. 38 Place Appreciation ....................................................................................................... 38 The Topographic Tradition .......................................................................................... 42 Public Topography ....................................................................................................... 52 Three Essential Features of Public Topography .......................................................... 55 Three Strategies for Public Topography ...................................................................... 63 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 69 CHAPTER IV EXPLANATORY AND POETIC APPROACHES TO TOPOGRAPHIC WRITING ........................................................................................... 70 Data and Methods ........................................................................................................ 70 Explanatory Topography ............................................................................................. 73 Poetic Topography ....................................................................................................... 86 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Explanatory and Poetic Strategies ................ 100 CHAPTER V EXPERIENTIAL AND HYBRID APPROACHES TO TOPOGRAPHIC WRITING ......................................................................................... 103 Experiential Topography ........................................................................................... 103 vi Hybrid Topographies ................................................................................................. 119 Universal Lessons ...................................................................................................... 127 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 133 CHAPTER VI BEYOND BOOKS: TOPOGRAPHIC PODCASTING ...................... 134 Background ................................................................................................................ 135 Data and Methods ...................................................................................................... 143 Lessons in Topographic Podcasting ........................................................................... 146 Appreciating Particular Places ................................................................................... 146 Engaging the Public ................................................................................................... 154 Focusing on Geography: Place, Landscape, Environment, and Space ...................... 172 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 182 CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 184 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 190 Works Cited ............................................................................................................... 190 Podcast Episodes, Series, and Webpages .................................................................. 207 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................... 211 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” -G.K Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles In the twenty years since I first graduated from Texas A&M University, I have lived in nine different places, including a town house in Italy, an abandoned aircraft hangar in Iraq, and a shipping container in Afghanistan. If you count the places I lived before I became an Army officer, the number jumps to 14, already putting me well above the national average of 11.7 moves in a lifetime.1 You might think that moving so