A Day in the Life of a Geographer
Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.
Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).
Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.
China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building along the New Silk Road (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Tom Miller (Zed Books 2019)
Conspiracy Theories: Philosophers Connect the Dots by Richard Greene and Rachel Robinson-Greene, eds (Open Court 2020)
The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place by Germaine R. Halegoua (New York University Press 2020)
Futureproof: Security Aesthetics and the Management of Life by D. Asher Ghertner, Hudson McFann, Daniel M. Goldstein, eds (Duke University Press 2020)
Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century by Tim Winter (University of Chicago Press 2019)
Motorbike People: Power and Politics on Rwandan Streets by Will Rollason (Rowman and Littlefield 2019)
Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border by Alex Oehler and Anna Varfolomeeva, eds (Rowman and Littlefield 2020)
The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Eric Paul Roorda, ed (Duke University Press 2020)
Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent by Maria Hlavajova and Wietske Maas, eds (MIT Press 2019)
Stagnant Dreamers: How the Inner City Shapes the Integration of Second-Generation Latinos by María G. Rendón (Russel Sage Foundation 2019)
This Pilgrim Nation: The Making of the Portuguese Diaspora in Postwar North America by Gilberto Fernandes (University of Toronto Press 2020)
Traces of J. B. Jackson: The Man Who Taught Us to See Everyday America by Helen L. Horowitz (University of Virginia Press 2020)
Traveling With Sugar: Chronicles of a Global Epidemic by Amy Moran-Thomas (University of Califonia Press 2019)
Urban Mountain Beings: History, Indigeneity, and Geographies of Time in Quito, Ecuador by Kathleen S. Fine-Dare (Rowman and Littlefield 2019)
The Wari Civilization and Their Descendants: Imperial Transformation in Pre-Inca Cuzco by Mary Glowacki and Gordon F. McEwan, eds (Rowman and Littlefield 2020)
The American Association of Geographers congratulates the individuals and entities named to receive an AAG Award. The awardees represent outstanding contributions to and accomplishments in the geographic field. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO during the AAG Awards Luncheon on Friday, April 10, 2020.
2020 Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award
The AAG bestows an annual award recognizing an individual geographer, group, or department, who demonstrates extraordinary leadership in building supportive academic and professional environments and in guiding the academic or professional growth of their students and junior colleagues. The late Susan Hardwick was the inaugural Excellence in Mentoring awardee. The Award was renamed in her honor and memory, soon after her passing.
Jeffery Roth, Stephen F. Austin State University
The AAG Enhancing Diversity Committee, and the Committee on the Status of Women in Geography have selected Dr. Jeffery Roth of Stephen F. Austin State University to receive the 2020 AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award.
Dr. Roth’s nomination materials speak to his excellent mentoring abilities in advising students from a variety of backgrounds and his commitment to supporting students both professionally and personally. He truly embodies the exemplary legacy of the late Susan Hardwick. Dr. Roth has served as Geography Club advisor, he continues to create lifelong learners, has received teaching awards, and actively participates, and encourages students to participate in community activities. It is clear that Dr. Roth has shaped the lives of faculty, students, and members of the community in remarkable ways.
The AAG is proud and pleased to present the 2020 AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award to Dr. Jeffery Roth.
2020 Enhancing Diversity Award
The AAG Enhancing Diversity Award honors those geographers who have pioneered efforts toward, or actively participate in efforts towards encouraging a more diverse discipline.
Demetrice Jordan, Michigan State University
Demetrice (Dee) Jordan, has been a true change agent for diversity in our discipline.
Among Ms. Jordan’s many notable accomplishments, she founded and co-leads the Michigan State University Geography Department’s graduate student diversity recruitment initiative “Advancing Geography through Diversity,” which actively recruits and increases application submissions and acceptance among underrepresented minorities. Dee is a tireless mentor and advocate for creating an institutional climate that encourages the development of under-represented minorities as leaders in our discipline.
Ms. Jordan was named MSU’s 2018 Excellence in Diversity, Individual Emerging Progress recipient, as well as the 2018 Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association’s Graduate Student Emerging Leader recipient, becoming the first Geographer at MSU to hold these honors.
The AAG is proud and pleased to award Ms. Demetrice Jordan its 2020 AAG Enhancing Diversity Award.
2020 AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography
The AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography is given annually to an individual geographer or team of geographers that has demonstrated originality, creativity and significant intellectual breakthroughs in geography. The award includes a prize of $1,000.
2020 AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography
The AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography is given annually to an individual geographer or team of geographers that has demonstrated originality, creativity and significant intellectual breakthroughs in geography. The award includes a prize of $1,000.
Brian J. L. Berry, Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor and Dean of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas
Professor Berry is one of the most influential figures in the disciplines of geography, urban studies, and regional planning. Berry’s early urban and regional research helped spark the quantitative revolution that occurred in geography and urban research in the early 1960s, making him the world’s most frequently cited geographer for more than 25 years. Throughout Professor Berry’s distinguished career he has successfully bridged theory and practice and has been heavily involved in urban and regional planning in both developed and developing countries.
In addition, the AAG recognizes Dr. Berry’s service to the discipline, including as AAG President (1978-1979) and as dean of the former University of Texas at Dallas School of Social Sciences, transforming it during a period of rapid growth into the (now) School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. Professor Berry’s over 500 books and countless significant awards speak volumes on the impact of his research in geography, and its recognition in other scientific fields.
2020 AAG Honorary Geographer
The AAG annually selects an individual as the year’s Honorary Geographer. The award recognizes excellence in research, teaching, or writing on geographic topics by non-geographers. Past recipients include Stephen Jay Gould, Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman, Barry Lopez, Saskia Sassen and Maya Lin.
Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, geologist, former NASA astronaut, NOAA Scientist, and 2017 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History
The AAG Executive Committee recognizes Kathryn Sullivan’s distinguished career, including being the first American woman to walk in space, serving as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and as a NOAA Administrator. The direction in which Sullivan steered Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science, integrated mapping services and Earth-observing capabilities is immediately recognized and welcomed by geographers. Sullivan also led NOAA with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses. As a woman scientist and role model, Kathryn Sullivan mirrors many of the values the AAG also actively pursues in our discipline and our association.
2020 AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice
The Rose Award was created to honor Harold M. Rose, who was a pioneer in conducting research on the condition faced by African Americans. The award honors geographers who have a demonstrated record of this type of research and active contributions to society, and is awarded to individuals who have served to advance the discipline through their research, and who have also had an impact on anti-racist practice.
Dr. Audrey Kobayashi, Queen’s University
Dr. Kobayashi exemplifies the ideals of the AAG Harold Rose Award, with a decades-long commitment to anti-racist research that has reshaped the discipline with impact far beyond university walls. In terms of research, Kobayashi has published on anti-racist practice in top field journals and in her Presidential addresses to the AAG “The Idea of Race in Geography,” and to CAG “What’s Race Got to Do with it? The Geography of Racialization in Canada.”
Kobayashi’s writing is frequently taught in graduate courses, thus impacting the next generation of geographers in the project of building an anti-racist geography. She is an impressive model of anti-racist praxis, from her work advocating for employment equity in Canada to her involvement authoring commissioned reports on anti-racist practice, to her mentoring of early career underrepresented scholars and efforts to consult with university administrators. We will end with the words of one of the letters of support, “Rose’s effort to confront the “Geography of Despair” remains unfinished. However, as exemplified by the steadfast work of scholar-activists such as Professor Kobayashi, this work continues.
The 2020 Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award in Geographic Science
The Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award recognizes excellence in academic performance by undergraduate students from the U.S. and Canada who are putting forth a strong effort to bridge geographic science and computer science as well as to encourage other students to embark upon similar programs. The award is an activity of the Marble Fund for Geographic Science of the AAG.
Jacob Bostick, University of Colorado – Colorado Springs
Nathan Fiscus, University of North Alabama
Chelsie Perkins, East Tennessee State University
2020 Community College Travel Grants
Provides financial support for students from community colleges, junior colleges, city colleges, or two-year educational institutions to attend the Annual Meeting.
Martha (Kennedy) Masanzi, Santa Barbara City College
Ozer Ozturk, Lone Star College
Brenna Strawn, Lone Star College
Stuart Watts, Montgomery College
PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
By David Kaplan
The region is one of geography’s main concepts and, true to these roots, regional divisions—mostly within the United States but many including Canadian provinces—developed as an intrinsic part of the American Association of Geographers. The Pacific Coast Division was formed in 1938 and the other regional divisions were established in the 1940s and 1950s. Preston James and Geoffrey Martin credit regions with much of the AAG’s growth during the 1960s, but what else would you expect from a geography organization? Regions are part of our DNA.
ANNUAL MEETING
The 2020 AAG Annual Meeting will be headquartered in downtown Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Regency – Convention Center. Discounted rooms will also be available at the neighboring Sheraton – Denver Downtown, currently being freshly renovated for meeting attendees to enjoy! A discounted block of rooms is being held for those attending the AAG Annual Meeting. Book your stay before rooms sell out or the rate expires on March 13, 2020.
The advice of a mentor can be instrumental in preparing young geographers for success in today’s competitive job market. The AAG seeks professional geographers representing the business, government, nonprofit and academic sectors to serve as volunteer Career Mentors during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. During sessions held each morning of the conference, mentors will answer questions and provide general career advice to students and job seekers interested in learning more about industries that employ geographers, the work geographers perform and strategies for getting into the field. For additional questions and to volunteer, please contact Mark Revell at the AAG.
More information about the Jobs & Careers Center.
If you are looking for some fresh air during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting, the Denver area has plenty of open spaces to choose from! While Rocky Mountain National Park and Mount Evans are some of the more well known locations for hiking, Esri Education Manager Joseph Kerski has some “off the beaten path” suggestions. His map of top ten hikes include a variety of options from urban hiking to views of the great plains to geologic vistas! Get ready to get outdoors at #aagDENVER.
Present a poster at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. As soon as your poster is ready, upload the electronic file to our Poster Portal so it can be viewed online well before and beyond your presentation session. In addition, the AAG has set up printing partnerships for discounts on paper poster printing to help you save.
PUBLICATIONS
Read the latest titles in geography and related disciplines as found on the New Books in Geography list. Some of these books will be reviewed in The AAG Review of Books. The editors of The AAG Review of Books are happy to receive suggestions for potential reviews and potential reviewers. Reviews are commissioned by the editors, based on the appropriateness and qualifications of the reviewer, observing the usual avoidances of conflict of interest. Persons wishing to volunteer their reviewing services should have the requisite qualifications and demonstrable prior knowledge and engagement with the subject area, preferably through publications. Please contact the editors at aagrb [at] lsu [dot] edu.
Browse the full list of new books.
In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:
• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books
The latest issue of the journal of the Africa Specialty Group of the AAG, the African Geographical Review, has recently been published. Volume 38, Issue 4 (December 2019) is available online for subscribers and members of the Africa Specialty Group. The latest issue contains eight articles covering all sub-fields of geography, to enhance the standing of African regional geography, and to promote a better representation of African scholarship.
ASSOCIATION NEWS
The AAG Fellows program recognizes geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. AAG Fellows, conferred for life, serve the AAG as an august body to address key AAG initiatives including creating and contributing to AAG initiatives; advising on AAG strategic directions and grand challenges; and mentoring early and mid-career faculty.
Each year, the AAG invites nominations for AAG Honors to be conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of the profession. The AAG Honors Committee is charged with making award recommendations for each category, with no more than two awards given in any one category. The AAG is proud to officially announce the 2020 AAG Honors. Formal recognition of the Honorees will occur at the Awards Luncheon at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.
In response to a member petition circulated last spring calling upon the AAG to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting, AAG Council formed a Climate Action Task Force. Task Force members Patricia M. Martin and Joseph Nevins report on the early initiatives set forth to attempt to transition to a low-carbon conference model. Planning for several experimental activities is currently underway for the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.
The AAG election will be conducted online again, and voting will take place January 8-30, 2020. Each member who has an email address on record with the AAG will receive a special email with a code that will allow them to sign in to our AAG SimplyVoting website and vote. It’s important to update your email address in your AAG account to ensure you receive the email ballot. The 2020 election slate will be published soon.
To better understand how the AAG could assist geography programs with student recruitment, the AAG developed a workshop (the “AAG Geography Student Recruitment and Career Resources” workshop) that was offered at four AAG Regional Division Meetings throughout Fall 2019. AAG staff encouraged participants to think geographically about their student recruitment plans and to come up with an actionable plan for their own campuses. By offering the workshop, the AAG was able to identify some strategies that can any program can consider tailoring to their own needs.
Learn more about the workshop.
The AAG is proud to announce the Fall 2019 student winners of the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. The annual award, designed to both encourage regional meeting participation and support AAG Annual Meeting travel, is granted to one student from each division as decided by regional division board members. The winners from each region will present their work in two dedicated sessions at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. Congratulations to all of the students who participated!
POLICY CORNER
The Library of Congress hosted an event on Nov. 13th in honor of GIS Day. The program featured Librarian of Congress and 2019 AAG Atlas Award Recipient, Carla Hayden, along with Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and other distinguished researchers and speakers. The projects presented throughout the day exemplified the utility of GIS around the themes of cultural heritage preservation and disaster response. The AAG co-hosted a celebratory reception later that day on Capitol Hill with MAPPS, ACEC, and NSGIC.
In the News:
MEMBER NEWS
College is about learning to think critically says Lisa Colson, GIS & Imagery Specialist at USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service. Lisa was attracted to a career in geography because it allowed her to combine her interests in food security, sustainability, and alleviating poverty. The skillsets geographers have are increasingly in demand in our globalizing world!
Learn more about Geography Careers.
The latest news about AAG Members.
AAG National Councilor Jennifer Collins is spearheading the organizational efforts for the 2020 Symposium on Hurricane Risk in a Changing Climate. As a new event, the symposium seeks to foster communication among scientists, engineers, and practitioners in order to increase understanding of and better ways to deal with tropical cyclone risks. The early bird registration deadline is December 15. Learn more.
RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
The AAG’s Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) will once again offer a valuable in-depth opportunity for early career professionals and department leaders in Geography to learn and engage during its annual workshops June 21-27, 2020, at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The shorter four-day workshop for department leaders (June 24-27) will overlap with the week-long conference for early career attendees providing a full career spectrum of exercises and activities.
The National Science Foundation is seeking qualified candidate for a Geographer (Program Director) position for the Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) Program, within the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), Alexandria, VA.
IN MEMORIAM
The AAG mourns the loss of David Schwarz (1936-2019), a professor of geography at San Jose State University. He passed away in Gilroy, CA, aged 82, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. David accepted a position at SJSU in 1971 and spent his entire career in various positions serving the university. His research was largely in the field of remote sensing.
GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS
EVENTS CALENDAR
AAG President David Kaplan recently outlined the need among geography programs to actively recruit students and to develop further community connections to AP Human Geography teachers. Geography faculty and chairs at colleges and universities, however, share difficulties attracting students to major in geography (or related) degrees mainly because students are unfamiliar with the discipline or associated career paths. To address President Kaplan’s call and better understand how the AAG could assist geography programs with student recruitment, staff members Coline Dony, Emily Fekete, and Mark Revell developed a workshop that built on existing AAG Resources (The Guide to Geography Programs, Profiles of Professional Geographers) and knowledge about existing recruitment strategies across our programs. The “AAG Geography Student Recruitment and Career Resources” Workshop was offered at four Regional Division meetings throughout the Fall: the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain meeting, the Association of Pacifiic Coast Geographers meeting, the Mid-Atlantic Division meeting, and the Southeast Division meeting.
These workshops attracted about 60 members, including program chairs, faculty, and students. Each workshop was introduced by AAG staff with an overview of possible recruitment strategies. Participants were prompted to first think geographically about their program and campus, leveraging our discipline’s very own expertise! For example, geography programs should understand where their own students come from (which schools feed into their college), and where their graduates go (how far and for what positions). The workshop went over a handful of on-campus strategies, such as connecting with undergraduate counselors and ways to showcase career possibilities, which could be implemented relatively easily. Other, more ambitious strategies that look beyond the college campus were also provided, including connecting to AP classrooms as a potential avenue to recruit students. This led to a broader discussion on the need to bolster ties with K-12 geography education in the US and on AAG’s active efforts in this area (e.g., Powerful Geography, Encoding Geography). Funding opportunities that can support those more pioneering and collaborative efforts around education research were also highlighted. Finally, important advice was provided on how to best leverage social media to reach different audiences (e.g., students, parents, or college administrators) and on how to manage social media accounts.
The overview of on- and off-campus approaches was followed by a break-out session providing workshop participants the opportunity to reflect on these suggestions, share their own outlook with us, and raise additional opportunities or challenges. During this break-out session, each group was also charged to create an actionable recruitment plan that would fit their program. Throughout these workshops, AAG staff learned that there is no “one size fits all” strategy to effectively recruit students. Techniques that work in Pennsylvania won’t necessarily work in Montana. By improving your understanding of your program’s “catchment area” (e.g., where are students coming from and where are they going) it will be easier to think critically about strategies. For example, if your program draws largely from a handful of high schools, you should reach out to those schools directly or offer to get involved in their AP Human Geography or AP Environmental Science programs. If your university draws from a community college, try to engage or collaborate with their faculty. Perhaps you can invite students to campus for Geography Awareness Week. If your college or university is drawing from students on a more national scale, you could consider contacting your registrar to see who has completed the AP Human Geography or Environmental Science exams on your campus and proactively reach out to these students. Finally, chairs and faculty need to think ahead and be aware of major demographic shifts impacting the overall demand for a college education in their area or across Institutions of Higher Education in general.
Despite these geographic and administrative differences, there are, however, some tactics that any program can implement to begin developing a recruitment plan. First among these is to ask your majors directly what made them choose geography as a major. Understanding how students make this choice will make your strategies more successful. Second, strive to develop good relations with college or university administrators. An active presence on social media could support this effort. Next, make sure to keep your faculty aware about ongoing events on your campus to leverage opportunities that could have an impact on your program. Fourth, actively connect with the undergraduate counselors and external advisors on your campus and perhaps consider using available funds to send the geography advisor to the AAG Annual Meeting to attend the Jobs & Career Center sessions for a day so they can familiarize themselves with the discipline. Finally, remember that student recruitment and program building takes sustained effort and time. Programs need to stay proactive about recruitment, make sure to assess strategies for their effectiveness, and understand that recruitment never ends (each year a new crop of students needs to be recruited).
We all care about geography and believe in the value of geographic education. If we work towards promoting and changing the cultural perception of geography as a subject, we can work towards building a more sustainable discipline.
While current funding only allowed staff to attend four Regional Division meetings, the workshop will also be offered at the Virtual 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. The free workshop titled “Geography Student Recruitment Workshop: strategies to attract more majors to your geography program” will be offered Wednesday, April 8, 2020, from 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM MDT. To attend the session please join here. A related session of interest to participants “What’s in a Name? Undergraduate Student Perceptions of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability Key Words and Program Names” is being offered by Justin Stoler, University of Miami, beforehand on Wednesday, April 8, 2020 from 11:10 AM – 12:25 PM MDT. In addition to the AAG Annual Meeting, the virtual workshop will be also held Wednesday, May 20, 2020 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM EDT. Those interested in participating in the free online event can register here.
*Funding for travel to present the AAG Student Recruitment and Career Resources Workshop at the four regional meetings outlined above was provided by the National Science Foundation (Award# 1837577). .
Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.
Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).
Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.
America’s Johannesburg: Industrialization and Racial Transformation in Birmingham by Bobby M. Wilson (University of Georgia Press 2019)
Deported to Death: How Drug Violence is Changing Migration on the US Border by Jeremy Slack (University of California Press 2019)
Fifty Maps and the Stories they Tellby Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea (Bodleian Library 2019)
For a Politics of the Common Good by Alain Badiou and Peter Engelman (Polity 2019)
Geographies of City Science: Urban Lives and Origin Debates in Late Victorian Dublin by Tanya O’Sullivan (University of Pittsburgh Press 2019)
Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases—San Francisco, New Orleans, New York by Rebecca Solnit, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Rebecca Snedeker (University of California Press 2019)
Islamic Maps by Yossef Rapoport (Bodleian Library 2020)
Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care by Giorgos Kallis (Stanford University Press 2019)
Manufacturing Decline: How Racism and the Conservative Movement Crush the American Rust Belt by Jason Hackworth (Columbia University Press 2019)
Mapping Beyond Measure: Art, Cartography and the Space of Global Modernity by Simon Ferdinand (University of Nebraska Press 2019)
On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden by Elizabeth Hennessy (Yale University Press 2019)
Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan: Unpacking the Policy Paradox of Municipal Takeovers by Ashley E. Nickels (Temple University Press 2019)
Public Los Angeles: A Private City’s Activist Futures by Don Parson, edited by Roger Keil and Judy Branfman (University of Georgia Press 2019)
Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party 1930-1950 by Mary Stanton (University of Georgia Press 2019)
Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror by Nicole Nguyen (University of Minnesota Press 2019)
The Company We Keep: Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships from Adolescence to Adulthood by Grace Kao, Kara Joyner, and Kelly Stamper Balistreri (Russel Sage Foundation 2019)
The Far Right Today by Cas Mudde (Polity 2019)
The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power by Megan Black (Harvard University Press 2018)
The Selden Map of China: A New Understanding of the Ming Dynasty by Hongping Annie Nie (Bodleian Library 2019)
Water, Life, and Profit: Fluid Economies and Cultures of Niamey, Niger by Sarah Beth Keough and Scott M. Youngstedt (Bergahn Books 2019)
Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States by Christopher J. Castaneda and Montse Feu, eds. (University of Illinois Press 2019)
PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
By David Kaplan
The region is one of geography’s main concepts and, true to these roots, regional divisions—mostly within the United States but many including Canadian provinces—developed as an intrinsic part of the American Association of Geographers. The Pacific Coast Division was formed in 1938 and the other regional divisions were established in the 1940s and 1950s. Preston James and Geoffrey Martin credit regions with much of the AAG’s growth during the 1960s, but what else would you expect from a geography organization? Regions are part of our DNA.
ANNUAL MEETING
The 2020 AAG Annual Meeting will be headquartered in downtown Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Regency – Convention Center. Discounted rooms will also be available at the neighboring Sheraton – Denver Downtown, currently being freshly renovated for meeting attendees to enjoy! A discounted block of rooms is being held for those attending the AAG Annual Meeting. Book your stay before rooms sell out or the rate expires on March 13, 2020.
The advice of a mentor can be instrumental in preparing young geographers for success in today’s competitive job market. The AAG seeks professional geographers representing the business, government, nonprofit and academic sectors to serve as volunteer Career Mentors during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. During sessions held each morning of the conference, mentors will answer questions and provide general career advice to students and job seekers interested in learning more about industries that employ geographers, the work geographers perform and strategies for getting into the field. For additional questions and to volunteer, please contact Mark Revell at the AAG.
More information about the Jobs & Careers Center.
If you are looking for some fresh air during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting, the Denver area has plenty of open spaces to choose from! While Rocky Mountain National Park and Mount Evans are some of the more well known locations for hiking, Esri Education Manager Joseph Kerski has some “off the beaten path” suggestions. His map of top ten hikes include a variety of options from urban hiking to views of the great plains to geologic vistas! Get ready to get outdoors at #aagDENVER.
Present a poster at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. As soon as your poster is ready, upload the electronic file to our Poster Portal so it can be viewed online well before and beyond your presentation session. In addition, the AAG has set up printing partnerships for discounts on paper poster printing to help you save.
PUBLICATIONS
Read the latest titles in geography and related disciplines as found on the New Books in Geography list. Some of these books will be reviewed in The AAG Review of Books. The editors of The AAG Review of Books are happy to receive suggestions for potential reviews and potential reviewers. Reviews are commissioned by the editors, based on the appropriateness and qualifications of the reviewer, observing the usual avoidances of conflict of interest. Persons wishing to volunteer their reviewing services should have the requisite qualifications and demonstrable prior knowledge and engagement with the subject area, preferably through publications. Please contact the editors at aagrb [at] lsu [dot] edu.
Browse the full list of new books.
In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:
• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books
The latest issue of the journal of the Africa Specialty Group of the AAG, the African Geographical Review, has recently been published. Volume 38, Issue 4 (December 2019) is available online for subscribers and members of the Africa Specialty Group. The latest issue contains eight articles covering all sub-fields of geography, to enhance the standing of African regional geography, and to promote a better representation of African scholarship.
ASSOCIATION NEWS
The AAG Fellows program recognizes geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. AAG Fellows, conferred for life, serve the AAG as an august body to address key AAG initiatives including creating and contributing to AAG initiatives; advising on AAG strategic directions and grand challenges; and mentoring early and mid-career faculty.
Each year, the AAG invites nominations for AAG Honors to be conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of the profession. The AAG Honors Committee is charged with making award recommendations for each category, with no more than two awards given in any one category. The AAG is proud to officially announce the 2020 AAG Honors. Formal recognition of the Honorees will occur at the Awards Luncheon at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.
In response to a member petition circulated last spring calling upon the AAG to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting, AAG Council formed a Climate Action Task Force. Task Force members Patricia M. Martin and Joseph Nevins report on the early initiatives set forth to attempt to transition to a low-carbon conference model. Planning for several experimental activities is currently underway for the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.
The AAG election will be conducted online again, and voting will take place January 8-30, 2020. Each member who has an email address on record with the AAG will receive a special email with a code that will allow them to sign in to our AAG SimplyVoting website and vote. It’s important to update your email address in your AAG account to ensure you receive the email ballot. The 2020 election slate will be published soon.
To better understand how the AAG could assist geography programs with student recruitment, the AAG developed a workshop (the “AAG Geography Student Recruitment and Career Resources” workshop) that was offered at four AAG Regional Division Meetings throughout Fall 2019. AAG staff encouraged participants to think geographically about their student recruitment plans and to come up with an actionable plan for their own campuses. By offering the workshop, the AAG was able to identify some strategies that can any program can consider tailoring to their own needs.
Learn more about the workshop.
The AAG is proud to announce the Fall 2019 student winners of the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. The annual award, designed to both encourage regional meeting participation and support AAG Annual Meeting travel, is granted to one student from each division as decided by regional division board members. The winners from each region will present their work in two dedicated sessions at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. Congratulations to all of the students who participated!
POLICY CORNER
The Library of Congress hosted an event on Nov. 13th in honor of GIS Day. The program featured Librarian of Congress and 2019 AAG Atlas Award Recipient, Carla Hayden, along with Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and other distinguished researchers and speakers. The projects presented throughout the day exemplified the utility of GIS around the themes of cultural heritage preservation and disaster response. The AAG co-hosted a celebratory reception later that day on Capitol Hill with MAPPS, ACEC, and NSGIC.
In the News:
MEMBER NEWS
College is about learning to think critically says Lisa Colson, GIS & Imagery Specialist at USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service. Lisa was attracted to a career in geography because it allowed her to combine her interests in food security, sustainability, and alleviating poverty. The skillsets geographers have are increasingly in demand in our globalizing world!
Learn more about Geography Careers.
The latest news about AAG Members.
AAG National Councilor Jennifer Collins is spearheading the organizational efforts for the 2020 Symposium on Hurricane Risk in a Changing Climate. As a new event, the symposium seeks to foster communication among scientists, engineers, and practitioners in order to increase understanding of and better ways to deal with tropical cyclone risks. The early bird registration deadline is December 15. Learn more.
RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
The AAG’s Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) will once again offer a valuable in-depth opportunity for early career professionals and department leaders in Geography to learn and engage during its annual workshops June 21-27, 2020, at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The shorter four-day workshop for department leaders (June 24-27) will overlap with the week-long conference for early career attendees providing a full career spectrum of exercises and activities.
The National Science Foundation is seeking qualified candidate for a Geographer (Program Director) position for the Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) Program, within the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), Alexandria, VA.
IN MEMORIAM
The AAG mourns the loss of David Schwarz (1936-2019), a professor of geography at San Jose State University. He passed away in Gilroy, CA, aged 82, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. David accepted a position at SJSU in 1971 and spent his entire career in various positions serving the university. His research was largely in the field of remote sensing.
GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS
EVENTS CALENDAR
Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.
Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).
Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.
Anthropos and the Material by Penny Harvey, Christian Krohn-Hansen and Knut G. Nustad (Duke University Press 2019)
Climate Machines, Fascist Drives, and Truthby William E. Connolly (Duke University Press 2019)
Connections and Content: Reflections on Netwoks and the History of Cartographyby Mark Monmonier (Esri Press 209)
Cyclescapes of the Unequal City: Bicycle Infrastructure and Uneven Developmentby John G. Stehlin (University of Minnesota Press 2019)
Enigmatic Stream: Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi Riverby Richard Sexton (University of Virginia Press 2019)
For the War Yet to come: Planning Beirut Frontiers by Hiba Bou Akar (Stanford University Press 2019)
Geography’s Quantitative Revolutions: Edward A. Ackerman and the Cold War Origins of Big Data by Elvin Wyly (West Virginia University Press 2019)
Ghetto: The History of a Wordby Daniel B. Schwartz (Harvard University Press 2019)
Home, Nature, and the Feminine Ideal: Geographies of the Interior and of Empireby Elaine Stratford (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2019)
Hungry Translations: Relearning the World through Radical Vulnerabilityby Richa Nagar (University of Illinois Press 2019)
Of Land, Bones and Money: Toward a South African Ecopoeticsby Emily McGiffin (University of Virginia Press 2019)
Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the Worldby Jairus Victor Grove (Duke University Press 2019)
Saving Grand Canyon: Dams, Deals, and a Noble Mythby Byron E. Pearson (University of Nevada Press 2019)
Sea Level Rise: A Slow Tsunami on America’s Shoresby Orrin H. Pilkey, Keith C. Pilkey (Duke University Press 2019)
The Seventh Heaven: Travels through Jewish Latin Americaby Ilan Stavans (University of Pittsburgh Press 2019)
This is not an Atlas: a Global Collection of Counter-Cartographiesby Kollektiv Orangotango (Columbia University Press 2019)
Trumpby Alain Badiou (Polity 2019)
Under Construction: Technologies of Development in Urban Ethiopiaby Daniel Mains (Duke University Press 2019)
Geographer Lester Rowntree was most at home exploring landscapes, to both appreciate and protect their cultural and ecological diversity. As a gifted educator, he enthusiastically shared what he learned and inspired his students to engage with the natural world. Les (the name he preferred) was an environmental geographer by training who loved nothing more than to walk in the oak woodlands, sail across the San Francisco Bay, or climb in the Sierra Nevada or the Cascades for the sheer joy of it. He made his impact on the disciplines of geography and environmental studies through teaching at San José State University, writing textbooks, scholarly articles on the cultural landscape, and a lifetime of research and activism working with California’s natural environment. He was a superb mentor for geographers of any age, making time for long discussions, careful listening, and wise advice. Les passed away on August 30th in his Berkeley home after a long struggle with cancer. He was 80 years old.
As a scholar Les was most known for a series of important essays on cultural landscape interpretation. He and his wife, archaeologist Meg Conkey, co-authored an influential paper in 1980 titled “Symbolism and the Cultural Landscape” that appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Another influential piece was the 1996 essay “The Cultural Landscape Concept in American Human Geography” which appeared in Concepts in Human Geography edited by Carville Earle, Kent Mathewson, and Martin Kenzer. He also was a prolific textbook author. In the 1980s he joined geographer Terry Jordan to co-author The Human Mosaic: A Thematic Introduction to Cultural Geography, a project he worked on for seven editions. He then collaborated with Martin Lewis, Marie Price and William Wyckoff for over 20 years on two world regional geography books, Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (seven editions) and Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (six editions). The books introduced a thematic structure for world regions while conceptually linking areas through globalization processes. The most recent edition of Globalization and Diversity was published in 2019. The best part about working with Les on these books was the way he approached it, with joy, high energy, purposefulness, and a dash of irreverence.
Although he wrote about the world, Lester Bradford Rowntree was a native Californian who cared deeply about his home. Born by the Pacific Ocean in Carmel on December 22, 1938, he spent his youth in what he called a “quaint village of artists, bohemians, and other interesting folk”. In the post-war years his parents moved to Berkeley, where his father was a member of the Berkeley Fire Department. Les attended school there, graduated from Berkeley High School, and was elected class president. His college years were restless as he struggled to find a subject that would keep his attention as much as the mountains and the sea, and toward the end he’d fondly recollect summers spent in fire lookouts and hanging out with climbers at the fabled Camp 4, near Yosemite Falls. He took time off, served in the US Army, and was eventually stationed in Germany where he wrote for Stars & Stripes. His time in Europe introduced him to the Alps, a place that he returned to for his doctoral research. After being honorably discharged from the army as a conscientious objector, he eventually returned to California and San José State University where he earned a BA in Geography in 1966. He then went to the University of Oregon where he earned his MA (1970) and PhD (1971) studying the human ecology of mountain systems.
With a PhD in hand, he returned to San José State University (SJSU) to teach. For over 30 years he taught in the Departments of Geography and Environmental Studies, introducing thousands of students to his passion for environmental geography and landscape interpretation, and steering a long list of students to graduate studies. While at SJSU he chaired the Department of Environmental Studies from 1995-2005. That department, established in 1970, was one of the first of its kind in the country. He retired from SJSU as Professor Emeritus in 2005 to focus on his writing, activism and love of the outdoors. He held Visiting Scholar and Research Associate appointments at the University of California, Berkeley since 2005.
Perhaps the most personal scholarly project of his career was Hardy Californians: A Woman’s Life with Native Plants, which was published in 2006 by the University of California Press. A monograph by the same title was first published in 1936 by (Gertrude) Lester Rowntree, Les’s grandmother, with whom he shared the identical name. His grandmother lived in the Carmel Highlands and was a pioneering expert on California’s native flora. Les took enormous pride in re-introducing his grandmother’s path-breaking work to a new generation of ecologists and botanists. He also enjoyed writing popular environmental essays for Bay Nature. Two excellent examples of the teacher/scholar writing to a broader audience are: “When it Rains it Pours: Atmospheric Rivers and Drought”; and “Forged by Fire: Lightning and Landscape at Big Sur” in which he returns to his lifelong interest in the impact of fire on the landscape.
Even though teaching required a long commute to San José, Les eventually returned to the Berkeley Hills to live in 1987 with his wife Meg Conkey, who at that time was appointed to the Department of Anthropology as a Professor of Archeology at UC Berkeley. Their home was regularly filled with visiting scholars, friends and family. Summers often included research, especially at Meg’s field site in the Dordogne, north of the French Pyrénées, with frequent travel to a family summer home in Maine. Les and Meg also shared a devotion to Cal sports and regularly attended women’s basketball and men’s football games. Les passed away in his home with a view of the ‘hardy Californian’ native plants that filled their garden. He is survived by his wife Meg, daughters Erika and Alicechandra, three grandchildren, and his brother Rowan and sister Pat. There are plans for a memorial in November.
Marie Price and Paul F. Starrs
In this brief letter, I describe some changes to our registration fees and meeting structure. I would also like to address the unfortunate overlap of our spring meeting with Passover and Good Friday.
Fees: Many members have complained to me and others about registration fees for the annual meeting. Setting registration costs is always a contentious issue, and we have to consider all of the constraints. You may hear that our AAG meeting fees are no higher than most other academic meetings. While this may be true, we should always try to do better and to increase the value to our members, particularly those with less ability to pay.
Rest assured that we are looking at changing and hopefully improving our registration costs. This is tricky because it must be done in such a way as to not overly diminish the AAG’s revenue. But we will keep trying. One step, which we introduced at our Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, was to lower the cost for people presenting posters or simply attending rather than presenting. A next step, which we are introducing at the AAG meeting in Denver, is to sharply reduce the cost of a one-day pass for people who attend the conference for a single day. This can bring in more people from the local community so they can see what geography is all about. This option is reflected in our new registration fee schedule. Later next spring, I hope to announce a further set of adjustments to make the annual meeting even more affordable.
Session Length: A second big change lies in the structure of the paper sessions. We are adjusting our paper length from 20 minutes to 15 minutes. This is in part related to necessity. As you are no doubt aware, the program committee, Oscar Larson, and other staff struggle to fit in all of the papers and other sessions. It is also difficult to find rooms for other ad hoc meetings that attendees try to schedule during the Annual Meeting week, as typically no extra rooms are available.
Shorter sessions increase our flexibility. They decrease the length of session blocks. They also allow for some longer lunch periods and more time in the evening without sessions. The new structure will allow session organizers to reserve some of their time for discussion. We understand that there may be problems in adapting to the shorter session times and so Council decided to hold this as an experiment for the Denver Meeting. If our members hate it, we can return back to the way it has been.
Holiday Oversight: Finally, I want to address a big problem about our upcoming meeting—one that members have brought to my attention in the last few months. When we scheduled Denver several years ago, it coincided with Passover and Good Friday. We really laid an egg on this one and I am deeply sorry for this unforgiveable misstep! As a small gesture, we have assembled a group to find alternatives for our members who would like to both participate in the meeting and celebrate Passover. We will be flexible with scheduling and we are also making arrangements with a local synagogue to host a Seder on Wednesday evening. Since the Annual Meeting ends on Friday, this should not be as large a problem for those observing Good Friday, but please let me know if it is.
I realize that these steps cannot make up for this blunder, but hope that it will mitigate at least some of the damage. And we will make sure that this does not happen again.
Putting together an annual meeting of the scope of the AAG spring meeting is a Herculean task. AAG staffers and member volunteers spend countless days creating a meeting we can all be proud of. But it is all so worthwhile. For many of us, the annual meeting is a highlight of our year. I look forward to seeing you in Denver.
— Dave Kaplan
AAG President
DOI: 10.14433/2017.0059