On the history and geography of the International Conference of Historical Geographers

The latest meeting in the series of International Conferences of Historical Geographers was held in Kyoto in 2009. The series originated in a meeting of Canadian and British historical geographers held in Kingston, Ontario, in 1975. Four subsequent meetings held in Britain, Canada and the USA saw an increasingly international participation and the sixth meeting, held in 1986, was accorded the title of the Sixth International Conference of Historical Geographers. Eight further such conferences have been held since then, some in locations well beyond Britain and North America. This paper records the basic historical and geographical characteristics of all of the meetings between 1975 and 2009.     

Emotional geography of education for history learning

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper explores two empirical examples to illustrate the need for ‘emotional geographies of education’ in relation to history learning at the level of primary education. It uses discursive analysis to analyse a specific WW2 history project, from a public school in England, to highlight the necessity to bridge formal environments of learning such as educational institutions, and informal spatialities of learning like the home and the community which provide the ‘funds of knowledge’ that students bring into the classroom. The article then discusses emotionality in the classroom (as a formal space of learning) by analysing pedagogical tools, such as testimonial literature used to facilitate emotional understanding of events like the Holocaust. Drawing from the literature on safe space, this article presents the nuances that have been raised with regard to power, dialogue and emotion, in relation to the discussion of classrooms as spaces of critical engagement with history.     

Nations-of-intent: from counterfactual history to counterfactual geography

The locations of international borders reflect political aspirations as well as power politics and attempts to bring state boundaries in line with nations. The expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia and the exclusion of the Philippines from the United States indicate the power of narrowly defined borders to govern national identity. The concept ‘nations-of-intent’ allows us to explore counterfactual borders as a way of examining how political aspirations translate into national borders. The paper explores three Asian cases – Malaysia, Mongolia and Vietnam – and makes reference to Indonesia in considering how different senses of what was possible and desirable in the context of decolonization generated different ideas about where borders should lie. This approach also allows us to interrogate losing forces retrospectively about the policies they would have followed within different border configurations.     

边疆史地研究与民族问题

改革开放以来,我国的边疆史地研究取得了显的发展。具有多学科综合性特点的边疆史地研究在继承历史、边政、舆地、方志、游记等传统的同时,开始吸收和借鉴民族学、宗教学、政治学等学科的理论和方法,使边疆史地研究正在形成贯通古今的新特点,体现出服务于现实边疆建设的应用性功能。所以,从边疆史地研究的发展来看,虽然定位于边疆,但并不局限于史地。     

黎庶昌地理学成就试论

黎庶昌研究治地理,得益于他出任西欧诸国外交官生涯,它的地理研究大多以欧洲为重点,成果有《欧洲地形考略》、《西洋游记》等。他还考察了国内数省的水土民情和关山道里,写成《丁亥入都纪程》。黎庶昌是抱着国富民强,捍卫祖国疆土的目的来研治地理学的。     

Italian cultural geography,or the history of a prolific absence

This article focuses on a group of buildings that form the site for a Steiner school in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. It examines the ways in which an environmentally friendly, ‘ecological’ structure was (and is) constructed such that the building and its accompanying practices might be seen as ‘performed art’. By more critically examining the school's geographies through ethnographic material, the paper moves away from the buildings' symbolic meanings to demonstrate how art and nature intersect in various ways, in the school's life. Art and nature were crucial to the type of education there, the physical process of building the school, and daily uses of the buildings. The paper also explores how the art-nature intersection is involved in the construction of ethical discourses and practices constitutive of ‘childhood’ and ‘education’.     

论鲁迅的文学史研究方法和价值取向

鲁迅的学史研究方法是以“史识”为核心、以揭示学史之内在演进逻辑为目的的,他对当时出版的各种学史都不满意,认为要么是“奴才家法”,要么是“资料长编”,打算编撰一部“简明可靠”而又有“史识”的学史。他的学史没有编成,但他留下的学史编撰提纲,体现了一位思想家的深刻见解和革命家的现实关怀。     

Materialist hermeneutics,textuality and the history of geography: print spaces in British geography,c.1500–1900

This essay canvasses a range of recent work in literary studies and the history of science advocating a ‘materialist hermeneutic’, an approach to the study of texts which takes seriously their printed format as a bearer of expressive meaning. The essay goes on to show the role of such a hermeneutic in revising our narratives of the history of geographical thought by looking at the print format of British geography books in the era 1500–1900. It is argued that the age of discovery created a ‘problem situation’ for geographical knowledge which was solved by the geographical grammar, this solution only collapsing with the closing of the world in the late-nineteenth century. It is further shown that the so-called ‘new’ geography of the late-nineteenth century developed a radically different print space for geography. The print spaces of early modern and new geography are shown to have been key determinants of the social and intellectual positioning of geography as a scholarly enterprise.     

Moving with the Times: An oral history of a geography department

The 30-year story of the geography department at Oxford Brookes University is presented as an oral history in the words of the experienced full-time staff. The department has gained a reputation in the UK and beyond for innovative active-learning methods and its story is an example of how a pedagogic culture can develop in a geography department. The story can also be read as a case study of a workplace in higher education, or as a contribution to the history of education. Most importantly, though, it offers insight into the key factors concerning the development of innovative teaching practice.