Yi-Fu Tuan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yi-Fu Tuan (Traditional Chinese: 段義孚), born 5 December 1930) is a Chinese-American geographer.
Tuan was born in 1930 in Tientsin, China. He was the son of a middle-class diplomat and was part of the educated class in the then Republic of China.
Tuan attended University College, London, but graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. and M.A. in 1951 and 1955 respectively. From there he went to California to continue his geographic education. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of California, Berkeley.
Contents |
[edit] Early career
Tuan's major field of study in his earlier years of academia was geomorphology, the study of landforms.
He followed his love for the desert and landforms to New Mexico where he was employed as a tenure-track professor in 1959, doubling the size of the University of New Mexico's geography department. There he got the motivation and inspiration he needed from the starkness and remoteness of the New Mexico desert. As a member of a two-person department Tuan had a large teaching schedule, but little if any pressure to produce material for publication. This gave Tuan ample time to focus his attentions back to human geography.
In addition to the New Mexico landscape and isolation, Tuan received inspiration from J.B. Jackson, who published Landscape in Santa Fe. This magazine combined geography with philosophy.
[edit] Later career
From New Mexico Tuan first moved to Toronto between 1966-68 teaching at University of Toronto.Then he eventually became a full professor at the University of Minnesota in 1968. There he began his focus on systematic humanistic geography. He describes the content of human geography from his wonderings about "the glories and miseries of human existence, observable on the streets as well as in colleges."
After fourteen years at the University of Minnesota, he then moved to Madison, Wisconsin, citing the impending doom of a mid-life crisis that turned out to be mild. Tuan concluded his professional career at University of Wisconsin - Madison, in 1998.
Today Yi-Fu Tuan is a retired professor-emeritus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He gives many lectures and has recently published a book entitled Place, Art and Self. He resides in Wisconsin.
[edit] Topophilia
A notable contribution of his to the field of geography is the concept of topophilia, presented in his book, Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. Tuan claims that topophilia "can be defined widely so as to include all emotional connections between physical environment and human beings."
[edit] Space/Place Definitions
In Space and Place : The Perspective of Experience, Tuan contends that a space requires a movement from a place to another place. Similarly, a place requires a space to be a place. Hence, the two notions are co-dependent.
[edit] Selected Bibliography
Place, Art, and Self. 2004. University of Virginia Press, Santa Fe, NM, in association with Columbia College, Chicago. ISBN 1930066244.
Dear Colleague: Common and Uncommon Observations. 2002. University of Minneapolis Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0816640556.
Who am I? : An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind, and Spirit. 1999. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299166600.
Escapism. 1998. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. ISBN 0801859263.
Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite's Viewpoint. 1996. University of Minneapolis Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0816627304.
Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture. 1993. Island Press, Shearwater Books, Washington, D.C. ISBN 1559632097.
Morality and Imagination: Paradoxes of Progress. 1989. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299120600.
The Good Life. 1986. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299105407.
Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. 1984. Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0300032226.
Segmented Worlds and Self: Group Life and Individual Consciousness. 1982. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0816611092.
Landscapes of Fear. 1979. Pantheon Books, New York. ISBN 0394420357.
Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience 1977. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0816608083.
Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values 1974. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. ISBN 0139252487.
The Climate of New Mexico. 1973. State Planning Office, Santa Fe, NM.
Man and Nature. 1971. Association of American Geographers, Washington, DC. Resource paper #10.
China. 1970. In "The World's Landscapes". Harlow, Longmans. ISBN 0582311535.
[edit] External link
- Yi-Fu Tuan's homepage at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
