CUltural Geography and Shaping the American Landscape

"The villages and towns have indeed ebbed, and the city-cum-suburb continues to eat up the countryside." -Pierce Lewis. When digesting this weeks readings i was very moved by what all of these articles had to say. All of these men were and still are working on mapping these rural towns and areas that most people just drive by and do not think twice about. What most people do not think about is that the American landscape is shaped by small little towns that are spewed across this nation. Another thing that most people do not recognize is the history of the towns and how that has shaped the landscape as well. Lewis goes into how small towns luster for a while then are torn apart by bigger cities taking jobs and people. This doesn't mean that the small towns are dying , even though some of them have, it means that we need to record what is there and try and preserve what is left by documenting these places.

The Highest Art Form

"There are many things that need to be changed in geography. If we are going to survive as an academic disapline, we should focus more on trying those changes for the better that will consolidate our position in universities rather than assist in our destruction." I think that this quote really sums up what a majority of these articles were talking about. I had no idea that geography was such a disputed subject. In taking geography classes at UNR, one does not see this problem that seems to plague geography. The UNR geography department seems very well rooted and defined. This article tells of how and why geography has such a broad array of topics that can be studied. The President also stresses the whole time about regional geography and how important it is. i liked how this ties in with last weeks articles and elaborates more on regionalism. This idea is still kind of new to me and i still do not really know exactly what it means? i have read many definitions but it still is not clear? how would you define regionalism?

Monmoniers Air Apparent

I thought that this book was a good read. i really liked how he got into exactly how the science of weather has evolved over the last century and a half. It does get a little slow with all of the weather talk but over all i thought this guide to reading weather was awsome.

About the first readings

The readings for this week really confused me. i did enjoy the first few articles on where the south began and what that entailed. But some of the articles seemed not to be related to any of. Especially the article on nutrition. i did enjoy that article as well and now that i think about it can kind of tie in with what we said in class about what makes the south the south is the food. So thats a little clear. But the readings did open my eyes to what modern geographers do. i haven't taken a geography class in about 2 years and i forgot everything that geography entails. These articles showed a side of geography that i hadn't even considered before. I was really intrigued by the article titled Surface Phenomena and Aesthetic Experience. This article elaborated on things that you would talk about in art which is my major. i think that its crazy that one can take a subject such as the aesthetic appeal and relate it to geography.