Miss Semple on the Influences of Geographical Environment

Chisholm, Geo. G.; Semple, Ellen Churchill

doi:10.2307/1778326

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In retrospect, this critique of the Westphalian model of territorial sovereignty, which still remains dominant today, anticipated the material turn in territorial theorization a century later (Clark and Jones 2017; Peters et al, 2018; Squire, 2016). However, although some deemed it the most notable work published in English on the ‘influence of natural conditions on human history’ (Chisholm, 1912: 31), it was widely criticized as simplistic and sweeping by leading social scientists, disregarded as an example of a discipline overreaching itself (Koelsch, 2014). Most problematically, environmental determinism, which Semple introduced to mainstream geography via Ratzel’s work, was already falling out of favour by the second decade of the 20th century.…”

Section: From Determinism To Idealismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Territory incognita

Usher

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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Tracing the lineage of territorial theorization, from legal container through dialectical, strategic and rhizomatic interpretations, this paper contends that more-than-human aspects of territory have been routinely circumvented by scholars seeking to avoid its realist, imperialist intellectual past. However, with the crisis of representation in political theory precipitated by the planetary ecological crisis, territory as a material entity has sprung alive again. This paper proposes that a reinvigorated materialist approach, informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s writings on territorial assemblages as machinic, nomadic and affective, can offer a way out of the territorial trap, reclaiming nomos from its conservative, masculine heritage.

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Section: From Determinism To Idealismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Territory incognita

Usher

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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“…Chisholm's perspective on Influences was rehearsed and expanded in his review of the book, published in The Geographical Journal (Chisholm 1912). In earlier correspondence, John Scott Keltie had assured Semple of a ‘stunning review .…”

Section: The Reception Of Influences In the United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chisholm found fault in Semple's adaptation of Ratzel, especially her over‐reliance on the first volume of his Anthropogeographie . Aspects of Ratzel's second volume, particularly its discussion of ‘the structural works of men’, Chisholm argued, might have been incorporated usefully into Semple's analysis (Chisholm 1912, 32). This criticism was slight, and Chisholm concluded that ‘one cannot be too emphatic in expressing the value of this work’ (1912, 32).…”

Section: The Reception Of Influences In the United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…‘There can be little hesitation in pronouncing this the most notable work that has yet appeared in English on the subject to which it is devoted’ (Chisholm 1912, 31). It was with this expression of admiration that George Goudie Chisholm, lecturer in geography at the University of Edinburgh, introduced his review in 1912 of a recently‐published environmentalist thesis.…”

Section: Introduction: Miss Semple's Influences and The Geography Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bringing geography to the book: charting the reception of Influences of geographic environment

Keighren

2006

Trans Inst British Geog

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Whilst geography has formed an important yet often unacknowledged component in the description and analysis of print culture, its specific and potential contribution to understanding the making, distribution and reading of books has yet to be outlined fully. This paper seeks to describe the different ways in which Ellen Churchill Semple's 1911 volume Influences of geographic environment was received and understood – to explain why it was read both as a timely manifesto for a scientific approach to geographical research, and as a text which might damage the discipline's legitimacy. In exploring Influences’ trajectory of diffusion, I argue that it is possible to outline a geography of its reception – to reveal a locational particularity in its reading and reviewing. In so doing, I address questions relating to the epistemic and methodological bases of book geography, and describe the contribution that geography can make to explaining how knowledge and ideas, in textual form, are communicated and received.

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“…For Markham, Close's address was ‘perfectly astounding’, and ‘must be challenged’. George Goudie Chisholm, lecturer in geography at Edinburgh, rebutted Close by pointing in his teaching to Ellen Churchill Semple's 1911 work (Chisholm 1912). J W Gregory, then a geologist at the university of Glasgow and who taught geography there, offered a placatory interpretation in noting that ‘I thought all Close meant was that cartography is the primary duty of geography’ and that he [Gregory]‘did not think it [Close's address] would have the slightest effect on the British Association or on the development of geography in this country’.…”

Section: Geography a Science? Close's 1911‘geographical Heresy’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Geography's other histories? Geography and science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–c.1933

Withers

Finnegan

Higgitt

2006

Trans Inst British Geog

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With reference to the history of modern geography in Britain and from assessment of the archives of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), this paper examines the role of the BAAS in promoting geography from the Association's foundation in 1831 to the 1930s. Particular attention is paid to BAAS Section E (Geography) in the period after 1851. Geography's place is considered with respect to its funding, content and relationship with other sciences, to shifts in its focus – from exploration to what contemporaries termed ‘scientific’ geography and to the attendant decline in audiences at BAAS geography sessions – and to moments of ‘crisis’ in geography's epistemological status. In examining extant work on geography's role in the BAAS, a case is made for revision of the current historiographies of ‘modern’ British geography and questions are raised about the connections between geography and science and the writing of geography's ‘disciplinary’ and institutional history in the modern period.

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Miss Semple on the Influences of Geographical Environment

Cited by 4 publications

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Bringing geography to the book: charting the reception of Influences of geographic environment

Geography's other histories? Geography and science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–c.1933

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