Narrative

I came to geography in a rather roundabout way, via a graduate program in medieval English literature at the University of California, Berkeley.  Casting about for a broad social science field that had ample room for humanistic concerns, I stumbled into the geography program, little realizing the effect it would have on my future.  I gradually weaned myself from arcana, learning solid positivistic methods, and concentrating on urban historical issues.  Along the way, I picked up one term's worth of Swedish, the better to be able to read Torsten H"gerstrand's recent works (at my advisor's suggestion).

I wound up doing my actual doctoral research at the Philadelphia Social History Project at the University of Pennsylvania.  This introduced me to the world of large historical database analysis, and gave me an introduction to a very primitive GIS, as well.  Then, after teaching stints at Penn and the University of Colorado, Boulder, I came to Minnesota, where I've been ever since.  My experiences with H"gerstrand's time-geographic methodology, combined with my familiarity with large database analysis led to an invitation to work with a group of historical geographers for a year at the University of Stockholm, Sweden.  I fell in love with Sweden, Swedish geography, and Stockholm, and have been a sometimes sojourner there for shorter and longer periods over the past decade and a half.