Textures Of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies

by Paul C. Adams, Steven D. Hoelscher

A fresh and far-ranging interpretation of the concept of place, this volume begins with a fundamental tension of our day: as communications technologies help create a truly global economy, the very political-economic processes that would seem to homogenize place actually increase the importance of individual localities, which are exposed to global flows of investment, population, goods, and pollution. Place, no less today than in the past, is fundamental to how the world works.The contributors to this volume -- distinguished scholars from geography, art history, philosophy, anthropology, and American and English literature -- investigate the ways in which place is embedded in everyday experience, its crucial role in the formation of group and individual identity, and its ability to reflect and reinforce power relations. Their essays draw from a wide array of methodologies and perspectives -- including feminism, ethnography, poststructuralism, ecocriticism, and landscape ichnography -- to examine themes as diverse as morality and imagination, attention and absence, personal and group identity, social structure, home, nature, and cosmos.

Genres: Geography, Nonfiction

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2001

Reviews

[Yujing He · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read the first and the last chapter. This two chapters critically show how influential the humanistic geographer Yi-Fu Tuan is for geography. The book use texture as a metaphor to characterize the concept of "place", and also the organization of the chapters. This is an really interesting idea. I often appreciate some scholars like the authors of this book can think and write like artists, making their academic work interesting, attractive, rather than boring.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very readable compendium of essays about humanistic geography. These essays are inspired by and gathered together in tribute to Yi Fu Tuan. I recommend Cosgrove's article about Jesuit iconography.