The Recent Intellectual Structure of Geography^*

* Although the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the people acknowledged, the authors thank the graduate students who took Geography 7902 in the fall of 2004 and contributed to the initial phase of the research: William B. Arden, Jennifer L. Booth, Henrike A. Brecht, Stephen P. Caparotta, Brandon P. Ellis, Frank J. Fillebeck, Sandor Gulyas, Jennifer H. Hathorn, Bo Hu, Bryan M. Landry, Elizabeth H. Matassa, Winston A. McKenna, Christopher J. Pennington, Bethany W. Rogers, Chris D. Russell, Jinwoong Yoo, and Ramin D. Zamanian. B. L. Turner II, Kent Mathewson, the editors, and the anonymous reviewers provided extremely useful feedback.

Abstract

An active learning project in an introductory graduate course used multidimensional scaling of the name index in Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century, by Gary Gaile and Cort Willmott, to reveal some features of the discipline's recent intellectual structure relevant to the relationship between human and physical geography. Previous analyses, dating to the 1980s, used citation indices or Association of American Geographers specialty‐group rosters to conclude that either the regional or the methods and environmental subdisciplines bridge human and physical geography. The name index has advantages over those databases, and its analysis reveals that the minimal connectivity that occurs between human and physical geography has recently operated more through environmental than through either methods or regional subdisciplines.

• active learning
• Geography in America
• human geography
• multidimensional scaling
• physical geography

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Sluyter

Dr. Sluyter is an assistant professor of geography at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803

Andrew D. Augustine

Messrs. Augustine, Bitton, Sullivan, and Wang are doctoral students in geography.

Michael C. Bitton

Messrs. Augustine, Bitton, Sullivan, and Wang are doctoral students in geography.

Thomas J. Sullivan

Messrs. Augustine, Bitton, Sullivan, and Wang are doctoral students in geography.

Fei Wang

Messrs. Augustine, Bitton, Sullivan, and Wang are doctoral students in geography.