Curiosity, Inquiry, and the Geographical Imagination
300th Edition
Published on 14. February 2012
XVIII, 307 pages
978-1-4539-0789-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book examines intellectual curiosity as the driving force in scholarly endeavor on the borderlands of geography, history, anthropology, and other disciplines. The premise is that curiosity is a salient trait of certain people past and present and that each field has its exemplars in this regard. For Carl O. Sauer (1889-1975), America's leading geographer of the twentieth century, and his intellectual descendants, the inquisitive spirit stood high on the list of indispensable scholarly attributes. Their curiosity-driven studies converging space, time, ecology, and culture involved a fluid and unpredictable process of intellectual discovery. This book, combining the empirical with the philosophical and reflexive, describes how the power of intrinsic motivation and the thread of a romantic consciousness blend with the joy of polymathic exploration.
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Peter Lang Verlag
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Person
Daniel W. Gade has an expansive curiosity about an intricate and diverse world that has led him to pursue fieldwork on four continents over four decades. Four books and more than a hundred articles and chapters have resulted from efforts to ferret out the many kinds of connections that tie humans, in their cultural and temporal settings, to the earth and its resources. His wide-ranging research interests have fallen under several rubrics: cultural-historical geography, environmental history, ethnobiology, cultural ecology, and biogeography. His PhD in geography is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and research support has come from the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, two senior Fulbright research awards, and a Spanish government grant. In 1999 Gade was named University Scholar at the University of Vermont, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Geography.
Content
- Intro
- CONTENTS
- Sources of Illustrations on Cover and Chapter Icons ix
- List of Figures xi
- Preface xiii
- Acknowledgments xvii
- Part One: Curiosity in Broad Context
- 1. Curiosity about Curiosity 3
- 2. Exemplars of the Inquisitive Spirit 22
- 3. Shamans and Scholars: The Questing Self as Archetype 49
- Part Two: Curiosity in Disciplinary Framework
- 4. Epistemic Curiosity and Romantic Sensibility in American Geography 65
- 5. Anima Curiositas: Carl O. Sauer 97
- 6. Curious Descendants: Sauer's Web of Scholarly Influence 115
- 7. Scholarly Motivation, Intrinsic and Extrinsic 141
- Part Three: Curiosity in Reflexive Mode
- 8. Born to Seek: An Intellectual Topography 163
- 9. Curiosity as Progressive Actualization 189
- 10. Twisting Paths and Blind Alleys: Curiosity and the Contingency of the Quest 211
- 11. Curiosity as Text and Sequel: Landscape as Witness to the Past 241
- 12. Conclusion: The Long Journey to Scholarly Enchantment 261
- References 271
- Index 299
