The History of Geography

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Historical Geography ◽  
Recent Time ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of Geography ◽  
History Of ◽  
Special Studies ◽  
American Geography ◽  
Formal Recognition

The history of geography is an untidy term that sprawls across an extended chronology and embraces an illdefined body of thought, knowledge, and ideas. Different countries have different histories of geographical thought, and not infrequently North American practitioners study one or more of these national histories. The period of investigation for some may exceed two thousand years while for others it may be decades only. There is no mainstream, but a variety of individual efforts—some oriental, some occidental, some published, others unsung—that do not of themselves come together. The historian of geography studies what other people have thought, said, and studied concerning matters geographical. Islands of knowledge form in seas of ignorance. The canvas is vast and for most of us choices must be made. Over the last thirty years it is probably true to assert that a majority of workers in this enterprise have made special studies of segments of the history of North American geography and its antecedents. The larger purpose of this type of investigation is to understand what has gone before, to comprehend how progress is made in the advancement of thought and how such a body of knowledge in its evolution brought us to recent time. It is a form of historical inquiry cognizant of the context of times past and guarded as to the limitations imposed upon us by lack of sources. In this country, among the academic pioneers of this genre were E. van Cleef, C. T. Conger, J. Paul Goode, C. O. Sauer, E. C. Semple, and E. L. Stevenson of whom four undertook some of their studies in Germany. Arguably, formal recognition of this branch of our field was entered into the literature by Wright (1925, 1926). Development of this body of knowledge has, however, been slow. Occasionally the terms “history of geography” and “historical geography” have been mistaken for one another or used interchangeably. The history of geography seeks to reveal the direction that individuals, institutions, books, beliefs, and concepts have taken in the eventual construction of a discipline and profession. The history of geography relates to and intermingles with histories of other fields (most notably perhaps with geology).

North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR)

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
American Association ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

I interviewed Russell McCutcheon back in March 2015, about his new role as president of the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), asking him about the history of the organization, goals for his tenure, and developments for NAASR’s upcoming conference in Atlanta in November 2015.

EXPLORING HEALTHCARE ARCHITECTURE THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF FILM: Motives and Techniques

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Stephen Verderber
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Behavior Setting ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
History Of

The interdisciplinary field of person-environment relations has, from its origins, addressed the transactional relationship between human behavior and the built environment. This body of knowledge has been based upon qualitative and quantitative assessment of phenomena in the “real world.” This knowledge base has been instrumental in advancing the quality of real, physical environments globally at various scales of inquiry and with myriad user/client constituencies. By contrast, scant attention has been devoted to using simulation as a means to examine and represent person-environment transactions and how what is learned can be applied. The present discussion posits that press-competency theory, with related aspects drawn from functionalist-evolutionary theory, can together function to help us learn of how the medium of film can yield further insights to person-environment (P-E) transactions in the real world. Sampling, combined with extemporary behavior setting analysis, provide the basis for this analysis of healthcare settings as expressed throughout the history of cinema. This method can be of significant aid in examining P-E transactions across diverse historical periods, building types and places, healthcare and otherwise, otherwise logistically, geographically, or temporally unattainable in real time and space.

Towards a Contemporary Philosophy of Islamic Science

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Anwar Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Work ◽  
Single Observation ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Stephen Hawking ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Physicist ◽  
Islamic Science ◽  
Rational Mind ◽  
Understanding Of Science

Our understanding of science itself as a body of knowledge and as asystem of analysis and research has changed over the last decades, just asover the last two centuries, or especially after the age of Enlightement inEurope, science has become more powerful, more sophisticated and complex.It is rather difficult to determine where science ends and where technologybegins. In fact there is a gmwing awareness that the physical or nam sciences,as a means of studying and understanding nature, are relying on the more“humanistic“ and cultural approaches adopted by the social sciences or thehumanities. The tradition of natural science is being challenged by newdiscoveries of the non-physical and non-natural sciences which go beyondthe physical world.Certainly research is vital for the growth and development of all sciencesthat attempt to discover and understand the “secrets” of nature. The validityof any scientific theory depends on its research and methodological premisesand even that-its proposition or theories (in the words of a leading cosmologistand theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking) -is tentative. Hawlung says: “Anyphysical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis:you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experimentsagree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the resultwill not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theoryby finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions ofthe theory.”The history of Western science is rooted in the idea of finding the ’truth’by objectivity. Nothing can be believed until there is a scientific proof ofits existence, or until it can be logically accepted by the rational mind. Theclassical scenario of scientific work gives you an austere picture of heroicactivity, undertaken against all odds, a ceaseless effort to subjugate hostileand menacing nature, and to tame its formidable forces. Science is depicted ...

El Papel de Humbodt en el Origen y Desarrollo de la Geografia Moderna

GEOgraphia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Héctor F. Rucinque e Wellington Jiménez
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Analytical Methodology ◽  
Alexander Von Humboldt ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
History Of Geography ◽  
Tropical America ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scholarly Production ◽  
Modern Geography

RESUMO Por lo general, los historiadores de la ciencia reconocen la importaocia de Alexander von Humboldt en el desarrollo de la geografía moderna, si bien tal contribución especializada no es claramente desglosada de su multifacética producción científica. Con ocasión del bicentenario de su viaje a la América tropical, el papel de Humboldt en la formulación de las bases de una metodología analítica para la investigación geográfica, y su monumental trabajo sustantivo, lo mismo que su penetrante permanencia e inspiración en la tradición geográfica, deben acreditarse como justificación amplia y suficiente para su título de padre fundador de la geografía científica. Epígrafes: Humboldt, historia de la geografía, geografía moderna, metodología geográfica, exploración científica.ABSTRACT Alexander von Humboldt’s contributions to the development of modern geography are generally ackoowledged by historians of science, though not always stated precisely out of his many-sided scholarly production. On the occasion of the Bicentennial of his voyage to tropical America, Humboldt’s role in setting forth the foundation of an analytical methodology for geography as well as for his monumental substantive work, along with his pervasive and inspiring perrnanence in the geographical tradition, must be recognized as ample justification tu his title as founding father of scientific geography. Key words: Humboldt, history of geography, modern geography, geagraphical methodology, scientific exploration.

Indian Boarding School Gothic in Older than America and The Only Good Indian

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kella
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Native North American ◽  
Indian Boarding School ◽  
Visual Sovereignty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

This article examines the appropriation and redirection of the Gothic in two contemporary, Native-centered feature films that concern a history that can be said to haunt many Native North American communities today: the history of Indian boarding schools. Georgina Lightning’s Older than America (2008) and Kevin Willmott’s The Only Good Indian (2009) make use of Gothic conventions and the figures of the ghost and the vampire to visually relate the history and horrors of Indian boarding schools. Each of these Native-centered films displays a cinematic desire to decenter Eurocentric histories and to counter mainstream American genres with histories and forms of importance to Native North American peoples. Willmott’s film critiques mythologies of the West and frontier heroism, and Lightning attempts to sensitize non-Native viewers to contemporary Native North American concerns while also asserting visual sovereignty and affirming spiritual values.

Hymnody and Liturgy

2019 ◽  
pp. 491-506
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hehn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Metrical Psalmody ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This chapter outlines the history of Presbyterian worship practice from the sixteenth century to the present, with a focus on North American Presbyterians. Tracing both their hymnody and their liturgy ultimately to John Calvin, Presbyterian communions have a distinct heritage of worship inherited from the Church of Scotland via seventeenth-century Puritans. Long marked by metrical psalmody and guided by the Westminster Directory, Presbyterian worship underwent substantial changes in the nineteenth century. Evangelical and liturgical movements led Presbyterians away from a Puritan visual aesthetic, into the use of nonscriptural hymnody, and toward a recovery of liturgical books. Mainline North American and Scottish Presbyterians solidified these trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, conservative North American denominations and some other denominations globally continue to rely heavily on the use of a worship directory and metrical psalmody.

An Economic Analysis of Indian Behavior in the North American Fur Trade

1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. McManus
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
North American ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Fur Trade ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

This study of Indian behavior in the fur trade is offered more as a report of a study in progress than a completed piece of historical research. In fact, the research has barely begun. But in spite of its unfinished state, the tentative results of the work I have done to this point may be of some interest as an illustration of the way in which the recent revival of analytical interest in institutions may be used to develop an approach to the economic history of the fur trade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document