Il ruolo dell’utopia, del mito e dell’immaginario nella concezione della geografia di Massimo Quaini

Myth, utopia and the imaginary have represented fundamental categories of geographical thought, as Massimo Quaini highlighted in several of his contributions, which underlined their influence and importance for the history of geography in the construction and development of geographical concepts. The weight and role of these categories of interpretation of geographical reality were particularly important at the time of the great geographical discoveries in the process of opening the European horizon to new worlds, a complex process in which the geographical imaginary represented a stimulus and a push, as it happened for the genesis and development of the Colombian conceptual universe.

HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE TVER REGION

Представлена история формирования и развития географии на базе Тверского государственного университета. Названы имена основателей географических кафедр, современных руководителей и ведущих преподавателей, а также основные направления научной деятельности. The history of formation and development of geography on the basis of Tver State University is presented. The names of the founders of geographical departments, modern leaders and leading teachers, as well as the main areas of scientific activity are named.

Academic Discourse on the Dualism between Regional Geography and Systematic Geography

This review based article entails that in the history of geography, one of the most exciting philosophical and methodological debates is the dualism between regional and systematic geography. This problem of “universality” and “exceptionality” has caused the biggest methodological debate in the history of geography. It reflects in the dualism of systematic geography and regional geography. Systematic geographers emphasize the pursuit of general principles in geography, while regional schools argue that areas of unique research are at the heart of geography. An analysis of the historical roots and evolution of the controversy shows that although the representatives of the two schools, Hartshorne and Schaefer, at least formally oppose the emphasis on only one of the systems and regions and neglect the other. Their differences in interest, values-induced preferences, and geography of history make them be ultimately different in their regional geography and systematic geography. The “Schaefer-Hartshorne Debate” in the 1980s was the only aftermath of this dualism. Since then, the rise of the pluralism methodology has made this dualism debate gradually fade out of people’s horizons, but postmodern geography focuses on “critical regional research”, which is still essentially a variant of this debate in the new era. The lack of such controversy in our geography community may be due to the academic orientation of “pragmatism”. The academic environment, the academic evaluation system, and the theoretical construction of compromise. This is not conducive to Nepal's geography. It is independent of the world of science.

Analysing the characteristics of major branches of modern geography

Geography can be described as a field of science which is the study of the Earth’s physical features, people, as well as the relationships between people and their environment. Based on collecting and analyzing materials from various sources, the paper analyze the characteristics of major branches in the new trend of geography. In addition, as a basis for the above analysis, we also outline the history of geography and present the traditional and modern methods in geographical research.