Mahmut Gokmen

Mahmut Gokmen, a PhD student in Geography at the University of Oklahoma, died July 21, 2008 in Norman, Oklahoma. He was 27.

Gokmen was born in Havza, Turkey on July 2, 1981. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Istanbul in 2002. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Akron in 2007 under the supervision of Ghazi-Walid Falah. At the University of Oklahoma, Gokmen was working on his PhD under the supervision of Darren Purcell.

Mahmut’s research interests included political geography, geopolitics, sovereignty, territoriality, and the history of geographical thought. He was the author (with Tyler Haas) of “Modern Mapping of Orientalism on the Arab World: National Geographic Magazine, 1990-2006” in The Arab World Geographer (volume 10, 2007). He received the Charles Standley Memorial Award for outstanding graduate student publication from the OU Department of Geography in April 2008.

Mahmut Gokmen (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(8): 17.

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Bill Hance

Professor emeritus and former chair of the department of geography at Columbia, Bill Hance, died on July 12, 2008. Hance was born in New York City. He served during World War II as a naval officer and later earned his PhD from Columbia University (1949). Hance was an active member of the American Geographical Society and served a term as AGS President from 1972-73. He also served on the faculty advisory committees of the American Assembly, the Columbia University Press, and the Smithsonian Institution International Program on Population Research, and on many Columbia committees including the University Senate.

Hance was a founding fellow and director of the African Studies Association. In 1967, he was named an honorary fellow of the AGS, and was honored by the Nigerian Society of Geographers for “distinguished contributions to the science of geography in Africa.” He gave visiting lectures on Africa at many of American colleges and universities in the 1950s, when the future of Africa was emerging an important topic of public debate in the U.S. in the years following WW II. Hance also served as a consultant to several government agencies, including the State Department and the Office of Naval Research.

Bill Hance (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(8): 17.

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Herbert Donald Hays

Herbert Donald Hays, retired professor of geography at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, passed away on July 6, 2008 of natural causes at the age of 86. He was a native of Berea, Kentucky. Hays’ education was interrupted by World War II, serving his country as a military pilot. After the war he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky and later did graduate work at the University of Michigan.

Hays took a faculty position in the Department of Geology and Geography where he taught geology, physical geography, microclimatology, urban and regional planning, and air photo interpretation. He collaborated on The Atlas of Alabama and traveled widely as a consultant in oil and gas exploration. Hays was an active member of the AAG and SEDAAG over his 36-year career. He played an important role in establishing the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. He retired in 1986.

Herbert Donald Hays (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(7): 22.

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Todd Reynolds

Todd Reynolds passed away on Sunday, June 22 at his home in Syracuse, New York. Reynolds was serving as a post-doctoral fellow at the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies at Syracuse University at the time of his death at age 37. He was working on an advanced training project in rehabilitation research and disability policy funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Reynolds was born in Milwaukee and grew up in the Atlanta area. He earned a B.A. in geography in 1994 and an M.S. in 1999, both from the University of Alabama. He completed his PhD in geography at the University of Oklahoma in 2007. Reynolds specialized in the experiences of people with disabilities in natural disasters. His doctoral dissertation, “Fragmentary Worlds: Sensory/Mobility Impairment, Indistinct Perceptions, and Shadowy Responses to Severe Weather,” explored how people with disabilities prepare for and cope with tornadoes and other severe weather in the Midwest.

Todd Reynolds (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(7): 23.

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David J. M. Hooson

David J.M. Hooson, professor emeritus of geography at the University of California at Berkeley, died recently at the age of 82. Born in the Vale of Clwyd, North Wales, Hooson gained his undergraduate degree at Oxford and his doctorate at the London School of Economics. After four years as a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, he came to North America in 1956, first to the University of Maryland, then to the University of British Columbia, from which he moved to Berkeley in 1964.

Long-time dean of social sciences, chair of geography and of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies, Hooson taught at UC Berkeley for 37 years. He continued to mentor staff and students, led an American Geographical Society Mediterranean tour in the summer of 2007, and at his death was teaching at the Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco. He chaired the IGU Commission on the History of Geographical Thought from 1980 to 1988 and the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science.

Hooson was a well-known authority on the former Soviet Union, notably its Central Asian republics, and his work influenced the development of geography within Russia itself. His books included A New Soviet Heartland? (1964) and The Soviet Union: People and Regions (1966). A prolific scholar, Hooson’s essays appeared in scores of books and periodicals within and beyond geography. His edited volume, Geography and National Identity (1994), has been called a path-breaking collection of global breadth. In his own essay, Hooson noted that the disintegration of the Soviet Union required redrawing “mental maps of this enormous slice of the earth’s surface” and rediscovering peoples whose regional attachments were “part of their life blood and their collective soul.” The reemergence of national identity the world over, he concluded, made the geographical dimension “fundamental, ultimately and increasingly inescapable, and to be ignored at our peril.” “The costs of geographical ignorance can be enormous,” he warned at a Berkeley commencement in 2001, “if also combined with arrogance, as many foreigners see the United States now.”

In addition to his contributions as teacher, mentor, administrator, and scholar, Hooson was known for his extraordinary personal warmth and generous spirit. He claimed his exuberant beard led some to see him as Darwin, others as Santa Claus. “If I can achieve such virtual fame simply by not shaving,” he told Berkeley geography graduate students, “think what you can do.”

David J.M. Hooson (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(7): 22.

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John E. Oliver

John E. Oliver, professor emeritus at Indiana State University, died on May 9, 2008. He served the Department of Geography and Geology at Indiana State from 1973-2002, including a term as Chairperson from 1982-1986. Oliver was known as an outstanding climatologist, for his dedication to geographic education, and for his contributions as co-founder of the journal Physical Geography, where he served as climatology editor from 1979-2000.

Oliver earned his M.A. and PhD from Columbia University after earning his B.Sc. from London University. He joined the faculty in geography at Columbia, following the completion of his PhD in 1969. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1972. A year later, he accepted a position as Associate Professor at Indiana State. Oliver’s service to Indiana State included a term as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1986-1988.

The Climatology Specialty Group (CSG) of the Association of American Geographers made Oliver their first Lifetime Achievement Award winner in 1998, and he served as Chairperson of the CSG from 1984-1986. During his career, Oliver was a Visiting Scientist at NCAR, a member of the AAG/GTU Visiting Geographical Scientists Program, and a Visiting Eminent Professor at the University of Newcastle in Australia. He was awarded the ISU College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Award in 1996. In 2000, John E. Oliver was awarded an AAG Citation for contributions toward the geography (climate) of Indiana.

Oliver’s teaching and research interests were in physical geography, meteorology, and climatology. He founded the Indiana State Climate Station in 1985 and was instrumental in the establishment of an official NWS weather observation site on the campus in Terre Haute in 1993. His contributions to geography include textbooks on applied physical geography, physical geography, and climatology. Several of his more prestigious contributions include his coauthorship of the “Climatology” chapter in Geography in America with R.G. Barry, W.A.R. Brinkmann and J.R. Rayner (1990); his coeditorship of The Encyclopedia of Climatology with R. W. Fairbridge (1988); and his service as editor of the Encyclopedia of World Climatology (2005). His more recent efforts included a co-authored book, The Global Climate System: Patterns, Processes and Teleconnections, with H.A. Bridgman (2006). A third edition of Climatology: An Atmospheric Science was being planned with co-author J.J. Hidore at the time of his death. Oliver’s last completed work, Indiana’s Weather and Climate, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2009.

John E. Oliver (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(7): 22-23.

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Denis Cosgrove

Denis Cosgrove died recently at the age of 59. He did much to enlarge and enrich cultural geography as a field of enquiry through wide ranging studies of geographical knowledge and imagination. Known for having little affinity with the positivistic approaches of spatial science, Cosgrove’s increasingly cosmopolitan vision had moved geography firmly toward the center of the humanities in recent years. His emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches helped broaden the scope of human geography and deeply informed the journal he cofounded, Ecumene.

Since joining the Department of Geography at UCLA in 2000, Cosgrove had served in the prestigious role of Alexander Von Humboldt Chair of Human Geography. This appointment followed positions at Royal Holloway, University of London (1994-2000), Loughborough University (1980-1994), and Oxford Polytechnic University (1972-1980). Cosgrove graduated from Oxford with a degree in geography in 1969. He later obtained a master’s degree in geography from the University of Toronto (1971) before returning to Oxford to earn a PhD (1976). He was about to become Chair of the Geography Department at UCLA in 2006 when he was first diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually take his life.

Cosgrove published a series of influential books exploring the manifold power of landscape in various historical and geographical settings, particularly in the design and engineering schemes of Renaissance Italy. Titles include The Palladian Landscape (1993) and an important collection of essays which he co-edited with Stephen Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape (1988). His most recent book, Apollo’s Eye (2001), was an ambitious exploration of visions of the Earth in the western imagination from antiquity to the present. He also authored Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (1984), Water, Engineering, and Landscape (1990), and Mappings (1999).

Cosgrove was deeply engaged with art history, landscape design, and visual culture studies. He conceived and curated an exhibition on John Ruskin at the Ashmolean Museum in 2000, and was a key participant in the AAG’s Geography and the Humanities Symposium, which took place at the University of Virginia in June of 2007.

Cosgrove received the Back Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 1988 for contributions to human geography. He delivered the prestigious Heidelberg Hettner Lectures in 2005 and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Tallinn in February of 2008. Cosgrove would have been Getty Distinguished Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2008-09.

Denis Cosgrove (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(6): 10.

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Lane J. Johnson

Lane J. Johnson, professor and former Chair of the Department of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University, died following a long illness.

Johnson attended the University of Denver and later earned MA and PhD degrees in geography at Clark University. He arrived at Temple from Wayne State University in 1969 and retired after 28 years of dedicated service to the department and the discipline. He served in the U.S. Army in Germany in the early 1950s.

During his academic career, Johnson specialized in urban geography and was particularly focused on exploring the changing structure of American metropolitan regions. He was known as a clear and forceful writer and a skilled editor. Johnson helped imbue the Geography Department at Temple with a critical urban focus and helped facilitate a merger of the department with the Urban Studies Program. He was a 50-year member of the AAG.

Lane J. Johnson (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(5): 16.

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Edward B. Espenshade Jr.

Edward B. Espenshade Jr., professor emeritus at Northwestern University and a former President of the Association of American Geographers, died on January 26, 2008. He served the Department of Geography at Northwestern from 1945 through 1978, including a term as Chair from 1958 to 1975. Espenshade was known as an outstanding cartographer, for his dedication to geography education, and for the significant contributions he made to the Allied war effort in Europe during World War II.

Espenshade received his PhD in geography from the University of Chicago after earning BS and MS degrees in geology from that same institution. In 1932, he began his professional career as a junior geologist for the Illinois Geological Survey. He then worked as map curator at the University of Chicago Libraries and as geography instructor.

During the Second World War, Espenshade served as Foreign Map Editor for the Army Map Service, then as intelligence specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. His work as intelligence specialist put him in charge of one of several teams that entered cities and military installations within hours after their capture by U.S. forces to find, evaluate, and secure map-making and photo intelligence materials of value to the Allies.

Espenshade became a faculty member at Northwestern University immediately following the war. His professional colleagues and students particularly valued his mentorship and visionary leadership. Espenshade is perhaps best known for his editorial work on Goode’s World Atlas from 1949 to 1994. His contributions to the field of geography and cartography, both through his teaching and his publications, were extensive.

Espenshade served as Chairman of the Earth Sciences Division of the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. He also served as President of the Association of American Geographers in 1964. A former president of the Geographic Society of Chicago, he was elected its first Lifetime Director.

Espenshade received numerous awards during the course of his long career, including the Undergraduate Teaching Award at the University of Chicago, the Distinguished Service Award from the Geographic Society of Chicago, the George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service from the National Council for Geographic Education, and the Distinguished Geographic Educator Award from the Illinois Geography Society.

Edward B. Espenshade Jr. (Necrology). 2008. AAG Newsletter 43(4): 19.

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Alberto McKay

Alberto McKay passed away in December, 2007. He was a well-known geographer, historian, educator, conservationist, and writer who made lasting contributions to Latin American geography as administrator, teacher, and author of more than 70 chapters, articles, essays, reviews, and books. McKay received his PhD from the University of Strasbourg in 1969. He later became Adviser in Environmental Education of the Ministry of Education, a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources in Panama, and Director of the Institute of the Panama Canal and International Studies at the University of Panama. He was a tireless advocate of the importance of geographic education.

Alberto McKay (Necrology).2008. AAG Newsletter 43(2): 19.

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