Week 7 Readings

"Axioms for Reading the Landscape"
I read this article before when I took Randlett's class Urban Geography, and even though I appreciated the article then, it has taken on new meaning this time around. I must say that all this reading we've been doing, although burdensome in how much we must read in so little time, has flooded me with new perspectives on geography and landscapes. I think this article will be the most beneficial with respect to completing my project by sending me in the right direction, so I can "merely...look in the right place" (20).

I loved the quote: "Our human landscape is our unwitting autobiography" (12). Our culture's own story is in plain view for anyone who wishes to read it...and knows how, which Lewis says soon after the previous quote, and which made me laugh: "All our cultural warts and blemishes are there, and our glories too; but above all, our ordinary day-to-day qualities are exhibited for anybody who wants to find them and know how to look for them" (12).

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I want to point out that I can't remember any of the writers this semester mentioning anything about television and movies as a force on the cultural landscape. I think as far as encouraging (or inflicting) change, the boob tube has influenced the convergence of cultures more than anything else. Without even the tiniest reference to television (ok, I know television is not his point), Lewis says in Axiom #1, "To the degree that the look of two areas comes to be more and more alike, one may surmise that the cultures are also converging...It may be legitimate to speculate that such convergence of landscapes represents some real convergences of cultures and perhaps some lessening of racial tensions" (16). He also says, "California landscape tastes are widely and wildly imitated in most parts of the country. The delay between California invention and Eastern imitation is extremely small--sometimes almost instantaneous" (16). Although many factors can contribute to the convergence of cultural elements, television/movies must rank up at the top and nearly swallow up most other forces.

"A Geographer Looks at the San Joaquin Valley"

I enjoyed reading this description of the San Joaquin Valley because it challenged my perception of a place I know really well, yet hardly know at all. My own impression of the San Joaquin Valley is only of dripping sweat and overpowering cow smell, and I am guilty of the "disdain" so prevalent about the area (374). I am one of those who perceives the valley "as endlessly monotonous, something to be put behind as quickly as possible...a benighted land, cursed by...relentless summer heat...not worth understanding and so without redeeming features" (374).

I grew up in Southern California, but every summer we traveled to northern California to our favorite water ski lake, Lake Trinity. We drove straight up I5 to get there, and the goal was to get there as fast as we could with as little discomfort as we could manage. Because of the devastating combination of the intense heat and our older, easily-overheating truck with camper pulling a boat, air conditioning was forbidden, and sometimes even running the heater was necessary to avoid boiling over. The San Joaquin Valley was known to me only as the most miserable part of the drive on the road to my most favorite place in the world. I didn't even know it was called the San Joaquin Valley until I was an adult and drove that way for other purposes, and even then, I hurried through as quickly as I could believing there was nothing to see. For too many years this valley has been known only as that stretch of road that sweats and smells like cows. No more. This article set me straight properly. It actually makes me want to drive it again so I can look around more, especially since my car today could stand the heat and filter some of the smell! I want to see what Parsons sees when he drives that way: "For me there is wondrous excitement in the sweeping vistas...the flatness of the horizon, the green and brown checkerboard pattern...the contrast between the endlessly straight section-line roads and the graceful curves of the great federal and of state aquaducts, by the clean geometry of the countless lesser canals...the stately rows of Washingtonia or Canary Island palms..." (375-376). Even though I still would much prefer to pass on "the feed lots with cattle listening contentedly to recorded music and giving their special aroma to the air of Harris Ranch," I am pleased to see this region in a new light (375-376).

"The Americanization of the city "

I can see why Dr. Randlett likes this article so much. It concisely encapsulates the geography of the America city in an economical space without sacrificing detail or feeling. This article covers more than two centuries of American history and still captures the changing essence of the American city beautifully.

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Since my project is about Carson City, as a city, this article gives me food to chew on and spit out into my paper (though hopefully not as ugly as that imagery suggests!) It's amazing how I can read this article and apply it to any city. It shows how the American culture is distinct from others and more widespread than we realize. Americans like to be known as individuals and unique, even from others within our own culture, yet we replicate our imprint rather uniformly in our cityscapes! And now we are duplicating ourselves around the world: "Ever since Coca Cola signs began appearing in the farthest corners of the world, commentators have bemoaned the Americanization of the world's landscape" (291). This may be devastating for the rest of the world, but for Americans, it is a demonstration that our country, despite the co-habitation of so many cultures, has "developed a self-conscious identity and associated form, which reflect[s our] society's particular ideology, economy, and social composition" (291).

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Even though I don't want to see other cultures devoured by my own, I am pleased to realize this about the American city. I am taking my general capstone course, Intercultural Communication, at the same time as this one, and I read something a few weeks ago in the textbook that shook me up and still disturbs me now. It told about how a Caucasian girl who was in the extreme minority at her high school in California had a difficult time with "Ethnicity Week," during which all the cultures were to demonstrate something unique to their culture. This all-American girl could not think of anything distinct about her culture to demonstrate.

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Much of what we think is our culture we have actually borrowed from our country of origin, even though we may never have lived in that culture at all! I take great pride in my Irish and German roots and identify with them as a culture, even though my ancestors haven't lived there for many generations and I don't practice anything remotely Irish or German! I don't wear liederhosen or drink lots of Guinness; I don't speak with either accent, nor have any of my grandparents; I don't dance the polka or do the river dance. There is really nothing German or Irish about me aside from my fair skin and blue eyes. And yet, when I think of my culture, I tend to associate more with German or Irish culture than I do American culture. This is confusing culture with race. By race I am German and Irish; by culture I am American. I think many do this is because we haven't fully realized what our own American culture is in reality. We can see other cultures distinctly because they are different than how we live, but our own is vague and unrecognizable.

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I don't think I'm alone in this, and I believe this is a sad state of affairs in America. The cultural salad bowl is beautiful and amazing and has changed the face of the world through its tolerance and ability of cultures to live side by side, but in the process, the culture of "Americans" is drowned out and not fully recognized as distinct. Either we don't have a culture of our own or we can't see the forest for the trees. Which is it? This is what has bothered me because I struggle to identify elements of my own culture that are distinct and worthy of celebration (rap music and pants-hanging-below-underwear don't count, you see), and if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to know what you think.

"The Historical Geography Imperative "

I struggled with this article for the most part because I didn't recognize most of the authors mentioned by Meinig. Brown, Mitchell, Groves, Weaver, Borchert, Hilliard, Vance, etc. are strangers to me, and I don't have time to go read them right now. (However, I did notice that our very own Hausladen was quoted in there on page 85!) This article would be great if I had the time to research these authors more, but my head is already full of Lewis, Turner, Wilbur, Theobald, Webb, Popper, Lang, Parsons, Meinig, Sauer, Borges, Livingstone, Muller, hmmm, tired just writing this small handful that we've read thus far!

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Joking aside, I did pull out a few thoughts from this article. One, Meinig identifies the essence of geography that makes us so passionate: "That of course is what attracted most of us to the field, and it is both a pleasure and an obligation to reach out and share with others our way of trying to make sense out of the world" (84). As a geographer, there is something in me that wants to figure things out--"to make sense out of the world"--and that is "both a pleasure and an obligation to reach out and share with others."

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Two, I was interested in the commentary about the National Geographic Society. Maybe I'm not as old as I thought because I didn't realize it was so despised by geographers in the past. Ok, I didn't begin reading it until the 1990s when I was just 20, but I had a subscription long before I even knew there was such a major as geography. I've always enjoyed it. I was pleased to hear that they are pouring themselves back into public education, because that is where education about geography needs to begin, long before people can make a mockery of America's geography ignorance.

Three, I got a distinct sense of how "splintered" the field of geography is, and I didn't think it should be so. I mean, "fifty-one subfields we have splintered into" (85)? Aren't we detracting from that "interdependence" (81) that makes geography valuable and important if we stay so fractured into subfields? Perhaps if geography departments didn't splinter into subfields so strongly they wouldn't be cut from their universities and public school students are barely taught anything about geography anymore (divided we fall...is that what has happened?) I wasn't too sure about this characteristic of geography as a discipline, although I can see how it can easily happen. Geography is so diverse, and people do love to specialize in something, especially that which is more personally interesting and matches our talents better. However, this must not be so if the beauty and strength of geography is in its "interdependence."