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Schedule
of Events, Friday April 27, 2012
- A Friday Afternoon Address by Trevor Barnes, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 2:00pm in the Presidents Room of the Singletary Center for the Arts, University of Kentucky.
- The
Friday Evening Banquet held at The Red Mile Round Barn, 1200 Red Mile Rd, (near the intersection of South Broadway and Red Mile Road in Lexington)
Newton mangled on a Bissett home-made, electrical computer: the Cold War, social physics, and macrogeography in mid-twentieth century America.
Social physics entered US human geography during the 1950s, and suggested that spatial human interaction could be explained by physical theories and laws. It was a proposition that perfectly conformed to the prevailing Cold War intellectual "new rigorism" that adhered to the tenets of science, and particularly, to the unimpeachable truths of physics. While there were sporadic attempts to invigorate social physics over the next hundred years, it wasn't until the Cold War that a concerted push was made to revive it. That revival was associated particularly with the writings of the Harvard linguist, George Zipf, the peripatetic social statistician and one-time spy, Stuart Dodd, and the Princeton astrophysicist, John Stewart. William Warntz also joined this group, pioneering what he called "macrogeography". That work subsequently became important in the mid-1960s when Warntz as a Professor at Harvard took charge of the development of computer-based Geographical Information Systems (GIS). By drawing on Andy Pickering's idea of the mangle, my aim in this presentation is to understand how the Cold War, early computerization, and the longer standing movement of social physics, were pressed together ("mangled") during the 1950s to reshape human geography, transforming it from a descriptive ideographic discipline into a nomothetic spatial science.
Dr. Barnes will give a formal presentation at 2 p.m. and informal remarks at the evening's festivities. In addition to the cash bar beginning at 6:00 pm and the usual sumptuous buffet beginning around 7:30 pm, the banquet will include the induction of members into the international geography honor society, student awards presentations (both undergraduate and graduate), and an opportunity for those same students to present their own version of departmental awards.
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Ellen
Churchill Semple was born in Louisville in 1863,
and is considered one of the century's foremost
geographers. She entered Vassar College at the
age of 15 and received both her bachelor's and
master's degrees from there. Her academic home
was literally spread across the world; she was
a keen believer in experiencing places and people
as a means of better understanding them. Ms.
Semple was a dedicated researcher and a profuse
writer. She was named a charter member of the
Association of American Geographers, and was
elected the association's president (and first
woman president) in 1921.
Semple Day takes place each spring, and features
a variety of activities during the day, including
an open colloquium by the featured Semple Day
Speaker. By early evening, departmental faculty,
staff, students, alumni, and friends from around
the state retire to historic Spindletop Hall
for the now famous capstone banquet. Food and
drink abound, old friendships are rejuvenated
and new ones kindled as we gather at twilight
in the midst of Kentucky's beautiful horse country.
The event also provides a venue for the orchestration
of awards and recognitions, a time for collective
pride as our top student scholars are honored
for exceptional accomplishments.
We welcome new friends at this event! If you
would like to experience the glory of Semple
Day at the University of Kentucky, we encourage
you to contact the Geography Department's office
for more information.
Past Speakers
- Karl Zimmerer, Professor, Penn State University [2011]
- Lynn Staeheli, Professor, University of Edinburgh [2010]
- Carol Harden, Professor, University of Tennessee [2009]
- Jamie Peck, Professor, University of Wisconsin (Madison) [2008]
- Amy Glasmeier, Professor, Pennsylvania State University [2007]
- Craig Colten, Professor, Louisiana State
University [2006]
- Nuala Johnson, Reader, Queen's University
of Belfast, UK [2005]
- John Antenucci, Founder and CEO, Plangraphics
[2004]
- Sallie Marston, Professor, University of
Arizona [2003]
- Sally Horn, Professor, University of Tennessee
[2002]
- Victoria Lawson, Professor, University of
Washington [2001]
- Eric Sheppard, Professor, University of Minnesota
[2000]
- Richard Walker, Professor, University of
California, Berkeley [1999]
- Susan Hanson, Professor, Clark University
[1998]
- Ron Eller, Director, Appalachian Center,
University of Kentucky [1997]
- David Harvey, Professor, Johns Hopkins University
[1996]
- Gurney Norman, Professor, University of Kentucky
[1995]
- B. L. Turner, II, Professor, Clark University
[1994]
- John A. Agnew, Professor, Syracuse University
[1993]
- George J. Demko, Professor, Dartmouth College
[1992]
- Anne Buttimer, Professor, Universite d'Ottawa
[1991]
- Saul B. Cohen, Professor, Hunter College
[1990]
- Harm J. deBlij, Professor, University of
Miami [1989]
- Sam Bowers Hilliard, Professor, Louisiana
State University [1988]
- Risa Palm, Professor, University of Colorado
[1987]
- Melvin G. Marcus, Professor, Arizona State
University [1986]
- Chistopher L. Slater, Professor, University
of California, Los Angeles [1985]
- Julian V. Minghi, Professor, University of
South Carolina [1984]
- Barry C. Bishop, Asst. to the President,
National Geographic Society [1983]
- Grady Clay, Editor, Landscape Architecture
[1982]
- Peirce Lewis, Professor, Pennsylvania State
University [1981]
- Michael P. Conzen, Professor, University
of Chicago [1980]
- Cotton Mather, Professor, University of Minnesota
[1979]
- Marvin Mikesell, Professor, University of
Chicago [1978]
- Preston James, Maxwell Professor, Syracuse
University [1977]
- Langdon White, Professor, Stanford University
[1976]
- John Fraser Hart, Professor, University of
Minnesota [1975]
- Preston James, Maxwell Professor, Syracuse
University [1974]
- J. R. Schwendeman, Professor Emeritus, University
of Kentucky [1973]
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