Neil Smith

Neil Smith died of liver and kidney failure at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York on September 29, 2012, at the age of 58. He was Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he founded and for a number of years directed the interdisciplinary Center for Place, Culture, and Politics.

Smith was born and raised in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland.  He attended the University of St. Andrews (with a year spent at the University of Pennsylvania, 1974-1975), taking a B.Sc. degree in 1977, to be followed by a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1982, where his advisor was David Harvey.  He taught in the geography department at Columbia University from 1982-90 before moving to Rutgers.

Smith was a revolutionary force in the academic discipline of geography and beyond. A polarizing figure, his sharp wit and direct style could be taken harshly by those whose work was the aim of his critiques, while others recognized him as a role model for politically committed scholars. He influenced a generation of critical geographers and was one of the early organizers of the International Critical Geography Group. Smith’s work was widely read outside the discipline of geography, including in such fields as sociology, urban studies, anthropology and cultural studies and contributed to the “spatial turn” in the social sciences and humanities.

Entering a field often considered an intellectual backwater, Smith’s insightful scholarship and cogent arguments would imbue geography with an intellectual – and political – importance it had rarely before possessed. Originally on track to become a glacial geomorphologist (based on his love of Scottish landscapes), Smith’s interests gravitated toward the dynamics of urban change under the influence of St. Andrews lecturer Joe Doherty. Smith’s widely accepted “rent-gap” thesis, first published in a landmark article in the Journal of the American Planning Association in 1979 (based on his undergraduate thesis at St. Andrews), made clear that gentrification was a new strategy of capital accumulation actively restructuring urban space. Extended study of gentrification in New York City led to Smith’s influential book, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (1982), in which he argued that the dynamics of gentrification was rooted as much in culture (“revanchism” or class revenge, as the bourgeoisie sought to take back “their” city) as it was in economics. He linked the rise of zero-tolerance policing and the other “quality of life” initiatives of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to social changes taking place around the globe, jumping scales from a “localized urban anomaly” to a globalized “urban strategy.”

Smith’s arguments about gentrification were part of a much larger project examining the production of both nature and geographical space within capitalism. In Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space (1984), Smith shows that nature is not simply transformed but actually produced, an insight foundational for the whole field of political ecology.  He argued that to understand the workings of capitalism, we have to understand the way capitalism produces the very spaces that make its existence possible, a concept now central to much geographical work.  Together his theories of the production of nature, space, and scale can be said to add up to a new, remarkably cogent theory of uneven capitalist development.

Smith’s later work examined powerful mid-twentieth century American geographer, university president, and advisor to presidents, Isaiah Bowman (a primary architect of Woodrow Wilson’s positions that led to the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations), and led eventually to the publication of American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (2003), for which he received the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography in 2004 and the AAG’s Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography, also in 2004. Drawing together his various insights and a lifetime of Marxist scholarship, his final book was The Endgame of Globalization (2005).

Smith was also very active in organizing or co-organizing conferences and symposia, especially those of CUNY. He was frequently invited to give lectures both in the U.S. and abroad. He recently served as Visiting Professor at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and in August 2012 he gave the keynote address, “For (Political) Climate Change” at the Geographing the Future Conference, hosted by the National University of Ireland, Galway. Smith was co-editor of the influential journal Society and Space and served on the editorial boards of Social Text and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, among others.

Neil Smith received distinguished scholarship honors from the AAG in 2000.

Neil Smith (Necrology). 2012. AAG Newsletter 47(10): 22.
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Gary Peters

Gary Peters was born in Marysville, California on March 20, 1941. After serving as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy he attended Yuba Junior College and then transferred to Chico State University, where he majored in Geography. He then obtained his Master’s Degree and PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University.  Following the completion of his studies, Gary taught in the geography department at California State University Long Beach before finishing his career at Chico State University. Throughout his career Gary published ten books—including Population Geography: Problems, Concepts, and Prospects and American Winescapes: The Cultural Landscapes of America’s Wine Country—and numerous academic articles.

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Thelma Glass

Civil rights pioneer and longtime geography professor Thelma Glass has died at the age of 96.

Glass was a professor of geography at Alabama State University, where she taught for over 40 years. She was the last surviving member of the Women’s Political Council, which helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56, a key event in the civil rights movement.

Glass graduated with honors from the Alabama State Teachers College in 1941. She later attended the Teachers College at Columbia University, where she earned an M.A. in 1947.

John Knight, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Alabama State University, was one of Glass’s students. “She had such a pleasing personality, you felt welcome. You felt a sense of warmth. And she always challenged you academically to be the very best,” Knight was quoted as saying.[i]

Glass was the focus of a chapter written by Jan Monk and Sunita George with  Juanita George, “Teachers and Their Times: Thelma Glass and Juanita Gaston,” published in The South’s Role in the Making of AmericanGeography: Centennial of the AAG, 2004, edited by J.O. Wheeler and Stanley Brunn.

Glass’s main interests in geography included local and regional research in economic, cultural, and physical geography; excellence in education to prepare students for careers in teaching, government, and industry; and the introduction of geography into senior high schools in Alabama. She was well known on campus as a teacher-activist willing to put the values she espoused into action. Glass was deeply committed to the development and future success of her students and sought to introduce them to a broad-based education through the contextualization provided by geography education.

In 2011, Glass received ASU’s Black and Gold Standard Award, a non-annual award that is given to the school’s most notable alumni. She received many teaching awards throughout her career. An auditorium is named for Glass on the Alabama State University campus.

[i] Johnson, Scott. “Civil Rights Pioneer Glass Dies.” Montgomery Advertiser, July 25, 2012. www.montgomeryadvertiser.com. Accessed August 1, 2012.

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President's Column

Geography Outside-in

Eric SheppardI am honored and delighted that you have given me the opportunity to act as your Association president for 2012-13. In these columns—a new experience for me—I seek to provoke us all to think critically and creatively about the relationship between Geography as a discipline and the multifaceted socionatural geographies that occupy and shape our planet. I approach these columns in the passionate belief that geography flourishes when its practitioners are willing to critically engage with one another. When we take others’ knowledge and beliefs as seriously as our own, consensus need not be our goal. As Helen Longino points out in her book The Fate of Knowledge, we can learn more through ongoing constructive disagreement, achieving excellence through diversity. Thus I invite you to respond to my columns throughout the year, in the spirit in which they are offered: esheppard [at] geog [dot] ucla [dot] edu.

We all simultaneously, paradoxically, occupy centers and margins. The Association of American Geographers occupies the institutional center of a discipline, plagued by its perceived marginalization in and beyond the academy. The academy is an acknowledged center of learning and knowledge production, but regarded with skepticism— marginalized—by the majority of those beyond its “Ivory Tower.” Ours is an Anglophone organization, whose discourses are shaped by powerfully positioned (too often, like myself, white and male) practitioners worried about how to improve livelihoods for the disadvantaged that they rarely encounter. Our Association’s members, without whom the AAG would cease to exist, wonder whether they have influence over its activities. What does it mean to approach such centers from their constituted margins, to turn Geography outside-in?

I begin with the Association. When I became Vice President a year ago, reflecting if nothing else my disciplinary name-recognition, I nevertheless felt like an outsider. As a member for almost forty years, attending most of the national meetings and reading the Newsletter fairly regularly, I came to realize that I had little idea about what goes on at AAG’s Meridian Place headquarters. Beyond organizing annual meetings (surprisingly, not a money-maker), I learned that the AAG has devoted enormous effort during the last decade to promoting the margins of the discipline: enhancing demographic diversity, improving graduate education, providing advice and support to fragile departments, reducing membership fees for those with low incomes (here and abroad), promoting geography in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and prioritizing human rights. The vast majority of us, I believe, would see these as important priorities, with the potential to help turn geography outside-in. No doubt, we each also would have opinions and criticisms of how the Association is going about these—as we would for such initiatives wherever we find them. Critical engagement between views would be informative for all concerned, but can only happen when information networks effectively connect margins into centers.

Fortunately, we live in an age where information can flow in less-hierarchical ways. Digital divides persist, and social networking has both progressive and regressive possibilities (whose geographical processes and implications remain ill-understood), but there remains significant potential. As Executive Director Doug Richardson highlights in his July-August column, the AAG is enhancing efforts to use information technologies inclusively (without disadvantaging those relying on paper). Members can subscribe to SmartBrief, and communicate through knowledge communities. National elections will now occur online, which can only enhance low participation rates. The AAG Newsletter will mutate into an online communications strategy, as will the Guide to Geography Programs, and book reviews will move from the journals to an online AAG Review of Books.

Yet these can only be the first steps— not yet realizing the georepresentational potential of Web 2.0. Without careful communications planning, there also is the danger of information overload. What else should be considered: A state-of-the-art AAG website? The Newsletter via Facebook? A presidential blog (or twitter)? A portal highlighting geographic research? A website publicizing timely geographic research to influence policy and opinion formation and attract attention to what we do? New open access publication venues? Less, not more? Share your ideas.

Turning Geography outside-in means turning our diversity (substantive, epistemological, political, socio-spatial) into a unifying strength. Enhancing geographic excellence through diversity requires attending to power-differences, however, to fully empowering the participation of marginalized positionalities in core conversations. As I stated when nominated, this must remain a high priority for the Association. In North America, building on Audrey Kobayashi’s important efforts, renewed anti-racism initiatives are vital, aimed particularly at including the expertise and voices of Native Americans, Blacks and Hispanics (recognizing how these intersect with other aspects of difference: class, gender, sexuality, location, etc.). Globally, it should entail incorporating the expertise of geographers and fellow-travelers living and working outside the well-resourced Anglophone halls of geographic influence. Everywhere, it should incorporate the experience of those whose lives we study. I will elaborate next month.

Eric Sheppard

DOI: 10.14433/2012.0001

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Changing Human Populations Governance and Policy Networks and Connections
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Establishing an NIH-Wide Geospatial Infrastructure for Medical Research

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William Horbaly

Fifty-year AAG member William Horbaly, 91, of Charlottesville, North Carolina, has died.

Horbaly was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 24, 1920, the son of immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. He earned a PhD in geography from the University of Chicago, and a portion of his graduate study was completed at Charles University in Prague.

During the Second World War, Horbaly served as a United States Army tank commander in the 749th Tank Battalion, which received a Presidential Unit Citation for meritorious service in France. Horbaly saw action in France and Germany and was awarded the Bronze Star.

After returning from the war, Horbaly spent his professional career in federal government service with the United States Department of Agriculture. During his time as an Agriculture Attaché‚ he was assigned to the State Department and was stationed in Moscow for five years and Beirut for four. Upon his retirement from federal service Horbaly was the Assistant Administrator to the Secretary of Agriculture and was in charge of United States Agriculture Attaches stationed overseas.

William Horbaly (Necrology). 2012. AAG Newsletter 47(3): 36.

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Mark A. Maschhoff

Mark A. Maschhoff, Associate Professor of Geography at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, Missouri, died in September of 2011 at the age of 71.

Maschhoff received a bachelor’s degree from Concordia Teacher’s College in 1961 and in 1965 earned a master’s degree from Bradley University. He received his PhD in 1973 from St. Louis University. The philosophy of education was his main area of professional interest, and his research involved the development of innovative teaching methods.

A longtime faculty member at Harris-Stowe State University, Maschhoff developed the geography program there, increasing the number of geography majors from 25 to 150. He developed a strong program in physical geography, his specialty, but also increased offerings across a broader range of subfields including cartography and urban geography.

Maschhoff was well-known at Harris-Stowe for bringing new technologies into the classroom. He implemented the “Goals 2000” geography standards at Harris-Stowe, and pioneered methods of team teaching. He was particularly well-known for working with underachieving students and using perceptual behavior as a technique for increasing learning comprehension and the student’s self-image.

Mark A. Maschhoff (Necrology). 2012. AAG Newsletter 47(7): 30.

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Clyde Woods

Clyde Woods, Associate Professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), died this past summer.

Woods received his PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA where he studied with Ed Soja. Since his graduate student days, he had been an active member of the geographic community. He research was centered at the nexus of regional planning, African American studies, and social justice. As a longtime member of the AAG, Woods not only sought to focus attention on the plight of poor communities of color, but he also actively encouraged and mentored black geographers in order to diversify the discipline.

Woods was also Director of the Center for Black Studies Research at UCSB. His work demonstrated his overarching belief that the purpose of public social science is to explore and strengthen the links between knowledge embedded in communities and the knowledge disseminated by universities. “Clyde Woods was an admired colleague, professor, and student mentor, and he will be deeply missed by all the members of our UCSB family,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “Dr. Woods was engaged in two long-term research projects within our Department of Black Studies, one focusing on rebuilding efforts in New Orleans and the other on creating a network of community members and scholars studying race and policy issues in the Los Angeles area. He was also actively involved in Haiti relief efforts; the recent earthquake in Haiti touched him deeply, and he was passionate about helping the people of Haiti.” He joined the UCSB faculty in 2005 following appointments at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Maryland.

Woods was the author of two important books, Development Arrested: Race, Power and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta (Verso, 1998), an interdisciplinary work that reframed the history of the Mississippi Delta by unearthing and interpreting the blues epistemology of its poor black residents, and Black Geographies and the Politics of Place, co-edited with Katherine McKittrick (South End Press, 2007). In addition, he edited a special issue of the American Quarterly focused on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, “In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina: New Paradigms and Social Visions” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).

At the time of his death Woods had also completed a manuscript entitled, “Development Drowned and Reborn,” a study of post- Katrina New Orleans that his colleague and friend, Laura Pulido, will see through the publication process. Finally, Woods was also working on a book on the history of Black Los Angeles, which Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Laura Pulido hope to complete as a collaborative process. If people are interested in working on this project they should contact Ruth or Laura.

Clyde Woods (Necrology). 2012. AAG Newsletter 47(3): 36.

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Nicholas Helburn

Nicholas Helburn, professor emeritus at the University of Colorado and a former President of the AAG, died recently at the age of 93.

Helburn was born in 1918 in Salem, Massachusetts, and grew up in Cambridge. He enrolled at Harvard University but left after one year to work in the New Hampshire mountains. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and later received an M.S. in Agricultural Economics at Montana State.

During World War II, Helburn was a conscientious objector who provided alternative service by participating in bridge building and other public works projects in Tennessee and by working as a “smoke jumper” in Montana, parachuting to reach and extinguish wildfires in their beginning stages. After the war, he earned a PhD in geography from the University of Wisconsin.

Helburn was known as an avid educator, mentor, outdoorsman, traveler, gardener, ecologist, peace activist and advocate for alternative life styles. At the beginning of his career, he moved to Bozeman to start the Department of Earth Science at Montana State College. While at Montana State, Helburn spent a year in Turkey in the early 1950’s on a Ford Foundation grant, the research from which resulted in a book about dry land agriculture and village culture in Anatolia.

In 1965, Helburn became director of the High School Geography Project, one of the “New Social Studies” curriculum projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation to develop a new approach for teaching geography in high schools. He also became the first director of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) for Social Studies.

Helburn joined the geography department at the University of Colorado in 1971 and chaired the department for three years. During its formative years he served on the senior faculty of the University of Phoenix, helping to develop a unique college curriculum for working adults.

In 2002, the Peace and Justice Center in Boulder, Colorado recognized him as “Peacemaker of the Year.”

Nicholas Helburn (Necrology). 2011. AAG Newsletter 46(8): 22.

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Alexander Vias

Alexander C. Vias, associate professor of geography at the University of Connecticut (Storrs), died at the age of 51.

Vias was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. After beginning his academic studies at Rutgers University, he completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado, Denver in 1993. Vias then earned a master’s degree (1995) and a PhD (1998) in geography, both from the University of Arizona. Between 1998 and 2002 he was an assistant professor at Northern Colorado University. Since 2002, he had served as a member of the faculty of the Geography Department at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He was promoted to associate professor in 2005. Vias coordinated the Urban and Community Studies Program on the Storrs campus and worked closely with the Institute of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Vias was a widely respected population and economic geographer best known for his research on micropolitan areas, population change, economic-demographic linkages, and the settlement geography of rural America. He published over twenty professional articles and several book chapters. In recent years his research moved into the area of community health and health disparities, leading to a number of funded projects and the publication of several important research papers as well as close working relationships with the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

Vias was an active organizer of rural geography sessions at AAG Annual Meetings and Regional Science Association conferences. He worked collaboratively with federal researchers from the USDA Economic Research Service and the U.S. Census Bureau. Among his many service activities, Vias was an editor of the Population Specialty Group Newsletter and a member of the AAG’s Census Advisory Committee.

Vias received numerous awards and honors throughout his career, including being named a University of Connecticut Service-Learning Teaching Fellow in 2010, the Best Paper of the Year 2004 from the Great Plains Research Center, the Economic Geography Specialty Group Award for Best Dissertation (2000), and the 1998 Charles Tiebout Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper from the Western Regional Science Association. He received the National Hispanic Scholarship Award from the National Hispanic Society in 1996.

Alexander C. Vias (Necrology). 2011. AAG Newsletter 46(8): 44.

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