Roger P. Miller

Roger P. Miller, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, died on May 30, 2010 at the University of Michigan Medical Center from complications to injuries he sustained in a motorcycle crash. Born in Chicago on March 29, 1951, Miller graduated from the University of Chicago Lab School (1968), attended Oberlin College (1968-70), the San Francisco Art Institute (1970-71; photography and film), and University of California- Berkeley (1971-72; A.B., English Literature) before turning to Geography at Berkeley (1973-79; M.A., PhD), working closely with Alan Pred and Clarence Glacken. Miller will be remembered as one of the “New Urban Historians.” He joined Theodore Hershberg and the Philadelphia Social History Project at the University of Pennsylvania for dissertation research, and taught at Penn’s Department of Regional Science (1977-78), and the University of Colorado-Boulder (1979-80) before joining the University of Minnesota Geography Department in 1980. Miller’s specialties included the history of city planning, European and North American Cities, urban and historical geography, Scandinavia, and social theory. An award winning teacher, he was elected to the University of Minnesota’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. His course “The City in Film,” based on analysis of full-length commercial feature films, was immensely successful. Other teaching included “Geographical Perspectives on Planning,” “Global Cities,” “Cities, Citizens, and Communities,” and “Historical Geography.” His recent research focused on the historical population geography of Sweden and included regular work with colleagues at the University of Stockholm, Gotland University in Visby, and the University of Lund.

Roger P. Miller (Necrology). 2009. AAG Newsletter 45(6): 18.