GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place

345 Pages·2011·6.044 MB·English

by  Michael Dear, Jim Ketchum, Sarah Luria, Doug Richardson

GEOHUMANITIES
In the past decade, there has been a convergence of transdisciplinary thought charac-
terized by geography’s engagement with the humanities, and the humanities’ inte-
gration of place and the tools of geography into its studies.
GeoHumanities maps this emerging intellectual terrain with 30 cutting-edge con-
tributions from internationally renowned scholars, architects, artists, activists, and
scientists. This book explores the humanities’ rapidly expanding engagement with
geography and the multimethodological inquiries that analyze the meanings of place,
and then reconstructs those meanings to provoke new knowledge as well as the pos-
sibility of altered political practices. It is no coincidence that the geohumanities are
forcefully emerging at a time of immense intellectual and social change. This book
focuses on a range of topics to address urgent contemporary imperatives, such as the
link between creativity and place; altered practices of spatial literacy; the increasing
complexity of visual representation in art, culture, and science; and the ubiquitous
presence of geospatial technologies in the Information Age.
GeoHumanities is essential reading for students wishing to understand the intellec-
tual trends and forces driving scholarship and research at the intersections of geogra-
phy and the humanities disciplines. These trends hold far-reaching implications for
future work in these disciplines, and for understanding the changes gripping our
societies and our globalizing world.
Michael Dear is Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Jim Ketchum is Special Projects Coordinator and Newsletter Editor for the
Association of American Geographers (AAG), Washington, D.C.
Sarah Luria is Associate Professor of English at College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, Massachusetts.
Douglas Richardson is Executive Director of the Association of American
Geographers (AAG), Washington, D.C.
“This volume stands at the forefront of one of the most exciting new fi elds of
cross-disciplinary work. The editors have assembled a spectacular array of original
contributions from an impressive group of authors, whose work opens new routes into
the emerging fi eld known as the geohumanities. It is bound to become a landmark
book.”
Anthony J. Cascardi, Director, Townsend Center for the Humanities, U.C. Berkeley,
USA.
“Making a compelling case for re-aligning geography with the humanities,
GeoHumanities provides a series of richly-interwoven textual, visual and cartographic
essays to demonstrate the creative potential of new forms of artistic, literary and
historical engagement with place. Issuing a challenge to transcend disciplinary
boundaries, to forge novel connections between past and present, and to re-imagine
the world in novel ways, the contributors to GeoHumanities invite us to explore afresh
the politics and poetics of place.”
Professor Peter Jackson, University of Sheffi eld, UK.
GEOHUMANITIES
Art, history, text at the
edge of place
Edited by
Michael Dear, Jim Ketchum,
Sarah Luria, and Douglas Richardson
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2011 Selection and editorial matter, Association of American
Geographers; individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of the Association of American Geographers to be identifi ed
as authors of the editorial material and of the authors for their
individual chapters has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Garamond 3 by Glyph International Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and record-
ing, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-58979-6 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-58980-2 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-83927-0 (ebk)
Contents
List of fi gures ix
Acknowledgments xii
Contributors xiii
INTRODUCTION 1
Introducing the geohumanities 3
Douglas Richardson, Sarah Luria, Jim Ketchum,
and Michael Dear
PART I CREATIVE PLACES 5
Geocreativity 5
Michael Dear
1 Creativity and place 9
Michael Dear
2 Experimental geography: an interview with Trevor Paglen,
Oakland, CA, February 17, 2009 19
Michael Dear
3 Drive-by Tijuana 26
René Peralta
4 [Fake] fake estates: reconsidering Gordon
Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates 38
Martin Hogue
5 The City Formerly Known as Cambridge: a useless map by
the Institute for Infi nitely Small Things 46
kanarinka
vi CONTENTS
6 Undisciplined geography: notes from the fi eld of contemporary art 50
Emily Eliza Scott
7 Codex profundo 61
Gustavo Leclerc
PART II SPATIAL LITERACIES 67
Geotexts 67
Sarah Luria
8 “The stratifi ed record upon which we set our feet”: the spatial turn
and the multilayering of history, geography, and geology 71
Peta Mitchell
9 Monument of myth: fi nding Robert Moses through
geographic fi ction 84
Timothy Mennel
10 Fate and redemption in New Orleans: or, why geographers
should care about narrative form 95
Barbara Eckstein
11 Wordmaps 107
Howard Horowitz
12 Using early modern maps in literary studies: views and caveats
from London 112
Janelle Jenstad
13 “along Broadway 2009” 120
Robbert Flick
14 Thoreau’s geopoetics 126
Sarah Luria
PART III VISUAL GEOGRAPHIES 139
Geoimagery 139
Jim Ketchum
15 El otro lado de la línea/The other side of the line 143
Norma Iglesias-Prieto
16 The space of ambiguity: Sophie Ristelhueber’s aerial perspective 154
Caren Kaplan
CONTENTS vii
17 Counter-geographies in the Sahara 162
Ursula Biemann
18 Laura Kurgan, September 11, and the art of critical geography 173
Jim Ketchum
19 The Earth exposed: how geographers use art and science
in their exploration of the Earth from space 183
Stephen S. Young
20 Disorientation guides: cartography as artistic medium 187
Lize Mogel
21 Avarice and tenderness in cinematic landscapes of
the American West 196
Stuart C. Aitken and Deborah P. Dixon
22 Altered landscapes 206
Philip Govedare
PART IV SPATIAL HISTORIES 209
Geohistories 209
Douglas Richardson
23 Mapping time 215
Edward L. Ayers
24 Humanities GIS: place, spatial storytelling, and immersive
visualization in the humanities 226
Trevor M. Harris, Susan Bergeron, and L. Jesse Rouse
25 Without limits: ancient history and GIS 241
Alexander von Lünen and Wolfgang Moschek
26 History and GIS: railways, population change, and
agricultural development in late nineteenth-century Wales 251
Robert M. Schwartz, Ian N. Gregory, and Jordi Marti-Henneberg
27 Spatiality and the social web: resituating authoritative content 267
Ian Johnson
28 Teaching race and history with historical GIS: lessons
from mapping the Du Bois Philadelphia Negro 277
Amy Hillier
viii CONTENTS
29 Ha‘ahonua: using GIScience to link Hawaiian and Western
knowledge about the environment 287
Karen K. Kemp, Kekuhi Keali’ikanaka’oleohaililani,
and Matthews M. Hamabata
30 What do humanists want? What do humanists need?
What might humanists get? 296
Peter K. Bol
AFTER WORD 309
Historical moments in the rise of the geohumanities 309
Michael Dear
Index 315
List of f gures
1.1 Marcos Ramirez (aka ERRE), Walls, Muros 8
1.2 Amalia Mesa-Bains, What the River Gave Me 8
1.3 Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Colonial Atmosphere 18
2.1 Trevor Paglen, The Salt Pit, Northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan (2006) 20
2.2 Trevor Paglen, Classifi ed Flight Test 21
3.1 Elias Sanz, Playas de Tijuana 28
3.2 Andrew Malick, Laureles Canyon 29
3.3 Alfonso Caraveo, Cartolandia 33
3.4 Elias Sanz, Zona Río 34
3.5 René Peralta, The New TJ in the East 35
3.6 Map by Arturo Gonzalez Maldonado and Jose Blas Herrera 36
4.1 Martin Hogue, Study for Gordon Matta-Clark’s Reality Properties:
Fake Estates, Little Alley Block 2497, Lot 42, 1974 (2004) 39
4.2 Martin Hogue, Linear Browsing – The City as Fragment (2006) 41
4.3 Martin Hogue, Linear Browsing – The City as Fragment (2006), detail 41
4.4 Martin Hogue, Shared Boundary Between Queens and Nassau
Counties (2006) 43
4.5 Martin Hogue, Residual Lots Assembled (2006) 44
4.6 Milo Bonacci, Floor Pieces (2006) 45
5.1 The Institute for Infi nitely Small Things, The City Formerly Known
as Cambridge (2007) 47
5.2 The Institute for Infi nitely Small Things, The City Formerly Known
as Cambridge (2007), detail 48
6.1 Heather Frazar, video still from Core Matters 51
6.2 Heather Frazar, video still from Core Matters 55
7.1 Gustavo Leclerc, Cuicuilco 63
7.2 Gustavo Leclerc, La Carpa 64
7.3 Gustavo Leclerc, La Casa de Ramas Rojas/House of Red Branches 65
7.4 Gustavo Leclerc, Exotic Fish 66
11.1 Howard Horowitz, Manhattan poster (reduced in size) 108
11.2 Howard Horowitz, Manhattan poster, detail 109
11.3 Howard Horowitz, The Oregon Coast 110