Yi-Fu Tuan

Yi-Fu Tuan (Traditional Chinese: 段義孚), born 5 December 1930) is a Chinese-American geographer.

Tuan was born in 1930 in Tientsin, China. He was the son of a middle-class diplomat and was part of the educated class in the then Republic of China.

Tuan attended University College, London, but graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. and M.A. in 1951 and 1955 respectively. From there he went to California to continue his geographic education. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Later career

From New Mexico Tuan first moved to Toronto between 1966-68 teaching at University of Toronto.Then he eventually became a full professor at the University of Minnesota in 1968. There he began his focus on systematic humanistic geography. He describes the content of human geography from his wonderings about "the glories and miseries of human existence, observable on the streets as well as in colleges."

After fourteen years at the University of Minnesota, he then moved to Madison, Wisconsin,citing the impending doom of a mid-life crisis that turned out to be mild. Tuan concluded his professional career at University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1998.

Today Yi-Fu Tuan is a retired professor-emeritus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.He gives many lectures and has recently published a book entitled Place, Art and Self. He resides in Wisconsin.

pace/Place Definitions

In "Space and Place : The Perspective of Experience", Tuan contends that a space requires a movement from a place to another place. Similarly, a place requires a space to be a place. Hence, the two notions are co-dependent.

elected Bibliography

*Coming Home to China. 2007. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. ISBN 0816649928

*Place, Art, and Self. 2004. University of Virginia Press, Santa Fe, NM, in association with Columbia College, Chicago, IL. ISBN 1930066244.

*Dear Colleague: Common and Uncommon Observations. 2002. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. ISBN 0816640556.
*Who am I? : An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind, and Spirit. 1999. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299166600.

*Escapism. 1998. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. ISBN 0801859263.

*Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite's Viewpoint. 1996. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. ISBN 0816627304.

*Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture. 1993. Island Press, Shearwater Books, Washington, DC. ISBN 1559632097.
*Morality and Imagination: Paradoxes of Progress. 1989. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299120600.

*The Good Life. 1986. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. ISBN 0299105407.
*Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. 1984. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. ISBN 0300032226.
*Segmented Worlds and Self: Group Life and Individual Consciousness. 1982. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. ISBN 0816611092.

*Landscapes of Fear. 1979. Pantheon Books, New York, NY. ISBN 0394420357.
*Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience 1977. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. ISBN 0816608083.

*Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values 1974. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. ISBN 0139252487.

*The Climate of New Mexico. 1973. State Planning Office, Santa Fe, NM.

*Man and Nature. 1971. Association of American Geographers, Washington, DC. Resource paper #10.
*China. 1970. In "The World's Landscapes". Harlow, Longmans. ISBN 0582311535.

External links

* [http://www.yifutuan.org Yi-Fu Tuan's homepage] .
* [http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=623819 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article] about the Professor from June 24th, 2007.