Thinking about Place and Culture: An American Geographer in Catalunya

Authors

  • Daniel W. Gade

Abstract

In this essay on the geography of the heart, I use my experience in Catalunya to elaborate how geographers discover place and how a foreign encounter can transform ones thinking. Intellectual inspiration in this trajectory has come from Goethe (self-aware traveler with an open mind); Herder (originator of the notion of cultural-linguistic diversity), A. Humboldt (scientist curious about foreign lands); Royce (philosopher of the periphery); and Sauer (maestro of a cultural historical approach to geography). Learning about place at three scales has been a process of discovery illuminated by revisitation, reflection, and comparison. The small city of Olot has offered perspectives on pedestrianoriented urban living; the comarca of La Garrotxa has stimulated thinking about the logic of an environmenteally coherent micro-region; and Catalunya has provided an example of how solidarity, a sense of the past, but also the conjuncture of the Zeitgeist, have led to an extraordinary cultural resurgence.

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Published

2008-10-27

How to Cite

Gade, D. W. (2008). Thinking about Place and Culture: An American Geographer in Catalunya. Treballs De La Societat Catalana De Geografia, (61-62), 83–100. Retrieved from https://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/TSCG/article/view/41188.001

Issue

Section

Anglo-Saxon views on the geography of Catalonia and Valencia