Geography 336-001
CULTURAL/HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
Winter 2008
Dr. R.W. Widdis
Course Description:
Theoretical and methodological approaches to the spatial-temporal expression of present
geographical conditions. Emphasis on sources for reconstruction of past environments
and analysing geographical change over time.
Classroom:
Class Times:
Office:
Phone Number:
Email:
Office Hours:
CL 247
MWF
10:30-11:20 p.m.
CL 340.2
585-4242
randy.widdis@uregina.ca
MWF
11:30-12:20 p.m.
Course Requirements:
Research Theme Essay
Book Review
Final Exam
Quiz (Section I)
Participation in Discussion
40%
15%
25%
15%
5%
Readings:
No text is required. A collection of readings is on reserve in the Map Library.
Outline:
I
Introduction: Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Cultural-Historical
Geography, Culture History
“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I would want to
explain it to a questioner I do not know.”
St. Augustine
“What time is this place?”
Kevin Lynch
1.
“Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.”
Grafitti
Definitions
2.
3.
Past Traditions of Research and Recent Developments
Problems, Issues and Ongoing Debates (philosophies and methods)
II
Selected Research Themes
1.
Location
2.
Landscape
3.
Environmental History and Historical Geography
4.
Regions
5.
Urbanization and Industrialization
6.
Migration
7.
Identity Formation and Nation-Building
8.
Historical Geographies of Power and Control
9.
Feminist Historical Geography
10.
Applied Historical Geography
11.
Geographical Information Systems and Historical Geography
III
Conclusion: The Relevance of Historical Geography
LIST OF REQUIRED READINGS
Section I
1.
A. Baker, "In Pursuit of Wilbur Zelinsky and Other Historical Geographers," Historical
Geography Newsletter 4, 1 (1974), 17-19.
2.
R. Harris, "The Historical Mind," In D. Ley and M. Samuels, eds. Humanistic
Geography: prospects and problems (Chicago: Maaroufa Press, 1978), 123-37.
3.
J. Jakle, “In Pursuit of a Wild Goose: Historical Geography and the Geographic Past,”
Historical Geography Newsletter 4, 1 (1974), 13-16.
4.
D. Moodie, J. Lehr and J. Alwin, "Zelinsky's Product: Wild Goose or Canard?,"
Historical Geography Newsletter 4, 2 (1974), 18-21.
5.
C. Sauer, “Forward to Historical Geography,” Presidential Address, Association of
American Geographers, Annals of the Association of Geographers 31; 1 March 1941.
6.
W. Zelinsky, "In Pursuit of Historical Geography and Other Wild Geese," Historical
Geography Newsletter 3, 2 (1973), 1-5.
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Section II
Location
7.
J.B. Harley, "Historical geography and the cartographic illusion," Journal of Historical
Geography 15, 1 (1989) 80-91.
8.
P. Hugill, “World-System Theory: where’s the theory?,” Journal of Historical
Geography 23 (1997), 344-49.
9.
N. Thrift and A. Pred, “Time Geography: a new beginning,” Progress in Human
Geography 5 (1981), 277-86.
Landscape
10.
D. Cosgrove, “Place, landscape and the dialectics of cultural geography,” Canadian
Geographer 22 (1978), 66-72.
11.
P. Ennals and D. Holdsworth, "Vernacular Architecture and the Cultural Landscape of
the Maritime Provinces: A Reconnaissance," Acadiensis 10, 2 (1981), 86-105.
12.
R. Rees, "Images of the Prairie: landscape painting and perception in the western interior
of Canada," Canadian Geographer 20, 3 (1976), 259-78.
13.
R. Widdis. “The Murals of Moose Jaw: Commodification or Articulation of the Past?,”
Historical Geography 28 (2000), 234-52.
14.
R. Widdis, “Cultural Landscapes,” in B. Thraves et al., eds. Saskatchewan: Geographic
Perspectives (Regina: CPRC, 2007), 157-169.
Environmental History and Historical Geography
15.
D. Demeritt, “Ecology, objectivity and critique in writings on nature and human
societies,” Journal of Historical Geography 20, 1 (1994), 22-37.
16.
J. Powell, “Historical geography and environmental history: an Australian interface,”
Journal of Historical Geography 22, 3 (1996), 253-73.
17.
M. Williams, “The relations of environmental history and historical geography,” Journal
of Historical Geography 20, 1 (1994), 3-21.
Regions
18.
19.
D. Gregory, “The production of regions in England’s industrial region,” Journal of
Historical Geography 14 (1988), 50-58.
R. Harris, "Theory and Synthesis in Historical Geography,” Canadian Geographer, XV,
3 (1971), 157-72.
Urbanization and Industrialization
20.
R. Harris, “Industry and residence: The decentralization of New York City, 1900-1940,”
Journal of Historical Geography 19, 2 (1993), 169-90.
21.
D. Hiebert, “The social geography of Toronto in 1931: a study of residential
differentiation and social structure”, Journal of Historical Geography 21, 1 (1995), 5574.
22.
R. Lewis, “A city transformed: manufacturing districts and suburban growth in Montreal,
1850-1929,” Journal of Historical Geography 27, 1 (2001), 20-35.
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23.
E. Muller, “Industrial suburbs and the growth of metropolitan Pittsburgh, 1870-1920,”
Journal of Historical Geography 27, 1 (2001), 58-73.
Migration
24.
D. Arreola, “Mexico origins of South Texas Mexican Americans, 1930,” Journal of
Historical Geography 19, 1 (1993), 48-63.
25.
R. Widdis, “’We Breathe the Same Air’: Eastern Ontarian Migration to Watertown, New
York In The Late Nineteenth Century,” New York History LXVIII, 3 (1987), 261-80.
26.
R. Widdis, "Scale and Context: Approaches to the Study of Canadian Migration Patterns
in the Nineteenth Century", Social Science History 12, 3 (1988), 269-303.
27.
R. Widdis, “Borderland Interaction in the International Region of the Great Plains: A
Historic-Geographical Perspective,” Great Plains Research 7, 1 (1997), 103-37.
Identity Formation and Nation-Building
28.
C. Brace, “Looking back: the Cotswolds and English national identity, c. 1890-1950,”
Journal of Historical Geography 25, 4 (1999), 502-16.
29.
F. Kashani-Sabet, “Picturing the homeland: geography and national identity in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran,” Journal of Historical Geography 24, 4
(1998), 413-30.
30.
B. Osborne, “Constructing landscapes of power: the George Etienne Cartier monument,
Montreal,” Journal of Historical Geography 24, 4 (1998), 431-58.
31.
R. Widdis, “Borders, Borderlands and Canadian Identity: A Canadian Perspective,”
International Journal of Canadian Studies 15 (1997), 49-66.
Feminist Historical Geography
32.
J. Kay, “Landscapes of Women and Men: rethinking the regional historical geography of
the United States and Canada,” Journal of Historical Geography 17 (1991), 435-52.
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ASSIGNMENTS
1.
Book Review Assignment (15%)
Due: March 3, 2008
Penalty for later submission: 5% off per day. NO EXCUSES.
Choose a book from the list below (or a book of your choice pending approval by the instructor)
and address the following questions in your review (3-5 pages, double-spaced). While it is
acceptable to read other reviews of the book you have chosen, the assignment will be assessed
primarily on the basis of your opinions, summary and input. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.







What is the author setting out to accomplish?
What philosophy/ies direct the research?
What is her or his argument?
On what data sets and/or theories does the author rely?
What methodologies does the author employ?
What are the major findings?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the text?
List:
Stephen Hornsby Nineteenth Century Cape Breton
Ronald Rees New and Naked Land: Making the Prairies Home
Donna Haraway Reinventing Nature: Simians, Cyborgs and Women
Donald Meinig The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History,
vol. 1, Atlantic America, 1491-1800.
Roderick Nash Wilderness and the American Mind.
John Jakle The American Small Town: Twentieth Century Place Images.
John Hart The Look of the Land.
John Stilgoe Common Landscape of America.
John Jackson Discovering the Vernacular Landscape.
David Ward Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth Century America.
Allan Pred Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of
Cities, 1790-1840.
William Cronon Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England.
James Lemon The Best Poor Man’s Country: A Geographical Study of Early Southeastern
Pennsylvania.
James Vance Jr. The Merchant’s World: The Geography of Wholesaling.
James Shortridge The Middle West: It’s Meaning in American Culture.
Richard White The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment and Social Change
Among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos.
David Wishart The Fur Trade of the American West, 1807-1840: A Geographical Synthesis.
Donald Meinig The Great Columbia Plain: A Historical Geography, 1805-1910.
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John Bodnar The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America.
Andrew Clark Three Centuries and the Island: A Historical Geography of Settlement and
Agriculture in Prince Edward Island
R.A. Dodgshon Society in Time and Space: A Geographical Perspective on Change
Derek Gregory Regional Transformation and Industrial Revolution: A Geography of the
Yorkshire Woollen Industry
R. Cole Harris The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and
Geographical Change
C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange
Order in Canada
David Lowenthal The Past is a Foreign Country
Gabriel Lanier, The Delaware Valley in the Early Republic
J. Bukowczyk, N. Faires, D. Smith, and R. W. Widdis, Permeable Border: The Great Lakes
Basin as Transnational Region, 1650-1990
Randy Widdis, With Scarcely A Ripple: Anglo-Canadian Migration into the United States and
Western Canada, 1880-1920
2.
Major Paper (40%)
Choose ONE of the following:
a) Research Essay on the Qu’Appelle Valley
Due:
April 4, 2008
Penalty for later submission: 10% off per day. NO EXCUSES.
Instructions: The following assignment is designed to give you experience in preparing a
research paper in historical geography. Address the topic included below in a paper not less than
3500 words (15 pages) and not more than 5000 words (20 pages). Papers should include a title,
bibliography and appropriate maps, charts, tables, etc. Tenets of scholarship MUST be adhered
to; that is, footnotes should be executed properly (at the foot of the page or at the end of the
paper), there should be a bibliography at the end of the paper, etc. PLAGIARISM WILL NOT
BE TOLERATED. Assessment will be based largely on the following criteria:
(a)
thoroughness of research on bibliography;
(b)
explanation of concepts, themes, ideas encountered in readings or mentioned
in class;
(c)
originality of thought (always identify ‘borrowings’ by footnotes);
(d)
choice of relevance of maps, diagrams, illustrations, etc.;
(e)
style of writing and quality of the overall project.
Resources – Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, periodicals (e.g. Historical Geography, The
Journal of Historical Geography, Prairie Forum, Saskatchewan History), books, newspapers
and reference materials (e.g. ELECTRONIC RESOURCES, GEOBASE, CANADIAN
6
PERIODICAL INDEX, HISTORICAL ATLAS OF SASKATCHEWAN, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
SASKATCHEWAN, SASKATCHEWAN: GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES) in the library,
economic and historical atlases. LIMIT INTERNET REFERENCES TO NO MORE THAN
25% OF YOUR TOTAL SOURCES.
Topic: The historical-geography of the Qu’Appelle Valley of Saskatchewan.
Related themes:
pre-contact aboriginal presence
European settlement
urbanization
development of agriculture
evolution of landscape
OR
b) Research Essay on a Topic of Your Choice
Due:
April 4, 2008
Penalty for later submission: 10% off per day. NO EXCUSES.
Instructions: The following assignment is designed to give you experience in preparing a
research paper in historical geography. To this end, I would like you to prepare a paper that
relates to one of the themes covered in the course. Primary research in historical geography
involves long and painstaking work in archives and libraries and so this essay should rely
primarily on secondary literature that is relevant to your chosen topic. The completed project
will be the submission of a paper not less than 3500 words (15 pages) and not more than 5000
words (20 pages). Papers should include a title, bibliography and appropriate maps, charts,
tables, etc. Tenets of scholarship MUST be adhered to; that is, footnotes should be executed
properly (at the foot of the page or at the end of the paper), there should be a bibliography at the
end of the paper, etc. PLAGIARISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Assessment will be
based largely on the following criteria:
(a) thoroughness of research on bibliography;
(b) explanation of concepts, themes, ideas encountered in readings or mentioned in
class;
(c) originality of thought (always identify ‘borrowings’ by footnotes);
(d) choice of relevance of maps, diagrams, illustrations, etc.;
(e) style of writing and quality of the overall project.
Resources –periodicals (e.g. Historical Geography, The Journal of Historical Geography)
books, newspapers and reference materials (e.g. ELECTRONIC RESOURCES, GEOBASE,
7
CANADIAN PERIODICAL INDEX) in the library, economic and historical atlases. LIMIT
INTERNET REFERENCES TO NO MORE THAN 25% OF YOUR TOTAL SOURCES.
8