The Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography was founded by the American geographer Carl O. Sauer. Sauer was a professor of geography at the University of California at Berkeley from 1923 until becoming professor emeritus in 1957 and was instrumental in the early development of the geography graduate program at Berkeley and the discipline of geography in the United States. Each generation of this research school has pursued new theoretical and methodological approaches, but their study of the peoples and places of Latin America and the Caribbean has remained the common denominator since the early 20th century. Carl O. Sauer himself did not develop a particular interest in Latin America before 1925, when Oskar Schmieder, a German geographer, disciple of Alfred Hettner, and expert in Latin American regional geography, arrived at Berkeley, coming from Córdoba, Argentina, to work as an associate professor. Obviously, his interest awoke during Schmieder's presence between 1925 and 1930. After Schmieder's departure in 1930, Carl O. Sauer began to offer seminars on the regional geography of Latin America.
Sauer graduated many doctoral students, the majority completing dissertations on Latin American and Caribbean topics and thereby founding the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography. [1] Sauer's Ph.D. students who completed dissertations on Latin American and Caribbean topics are Fred Kniffen (1930), Peveril Meigs (1932), Donald Brand (1933), Henry Bruman (1940), Felix W. McBryde (1940), Robert Bowman (1941), Dan Stanislawski (1944), Robert C. West (1946), James J. Parsons (1948), Edwin Doran (1953), Philip Wagner (1953), Brigham Arnold (1954), Homer Aschmann (1954), B. LeRoy Gordon (1954), Gordon Merrill (1957), Donald Innis (1958), Carl Johannessen (1959), Clinton Edwards (1962), and Leonard Sawatzky (1967).
Of Sauer's doctoral students, James J. Parsons became the most prolific in terms of directing Latin Americanist doctoral dissertations. He remained at the University of California at Berkeley and produced many of the Ph.D.s in the second generation of the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography: Campbell Pennington (1959), William Denevan (1963), David Harris (1963), Thomas T. Veblen (1975), and Karl Zimmerer (1987).
One of the second generation, William Denevan, became a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and, in turn, produced the majority of the third generation. Denevan's Ph.D. students who completed dissertations on Latin American topics are, among others, Daniel W. Gade (1967; co-chaired), Bernard Nietschmann (1970), Roger Byrne (1972), Roland Bergmann (1974), Billie Lee Turner II (1974), Stuart White (1981), Hildegardo Córdova (1982), Gregory Knapp (1984), Kent Mathewson (1987), John M. Treacy (1989), and Oliver Coomes (1992).
A member of the fourth generation, William E. Doolittle studied with Billie Lee Turner II, a prominent member of the third generation. Turner has graduated almost 50 PhD students, many working in the Americas like Anthony Bebbington, who has over 25 'fifth generation' graduated students [2] [3] Doolittle earned a Ph.D. in 1979, became a professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin, and is one person to extend the school into the fifth generation. Doolittle's Ph.D. students who completed dissertations on Latin American topics are Dean P. Lambert (1992), Andrew Sluyter (1995), Emily H. Young (1995), Eric P. Perramond (1999), Phil L. Crossley (1999), Jerry O. (Joby) Bass (2003), Maria G. Fadiman (2003), and Matthew Fry (2008).
Several of the fifth generation hold faculty positions in university departments with doctoral programs, and a sixth generation is now emerging. They are applying new approaches and research questions to the study of the peoples and places of Latin America and the Caribbean. [4]
The Doctor of Education is a research or professional doctoral degree that focuses on the field of education. It prepares the holder for academic, research, administrative, clinical, or professional positions in educational, civil, private organizations, or public institutions.
Carl Ortwin Sauer was an American geographer. Sauer was a professor of geography at the University of California at Berkeley from 1923 until becoming professor emeritus in 1957. He has been called "the dean of American historical geography" and he was instrumental in the early development of the geography graduate school at Berkeley. One of his best known works was Agricultural Origins and Dispersals (1952). In 1927, Carl Sauer wrote the article "Recent Developments in Cultural Geography," which considered how cultural landscapes are made up of "the forms superimposed on the physical landscape."
David Russell Harris, FSA, FBA was a British geographer, anthropologist, archaeologist and academic, well known for his detailed work on the origins of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals. He was a director of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, and retained a position as Professor Emeritus of the Human Environment at the Institute.
Wilbur Zelinsky was an American cultural geographer. He was most recently a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University. He also created the Zelinsky Model of Demographic Transition.
Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, history, international relations, political science, geography, gender studies, and literature.
Peveril Meigs III was an American geographer, notable for his studies of arid lands on several continents and in particular for his work on the native peoples and early missions of northern Baja California, Mexico.
Karl W. Butzer was a German-born American geographer, ecologist, and archaeologist. He received two degrees at McGill University, Montreal: the B.Sc. (hons) in Mathematics in 1954 and later his master's degree in Meteorology and Geography. Afterwards in the 1950s he returned to Germany to the University of Bonn to obtain a doctorate in physical geography. He obtained a master's degree in Meteorology and Geography from McGill University and a doctorate in physical geography from the University of Bonn in Germany.
Billie Lee Turner II is an American geographer and human-environmental scientist, member of the National Academy of Sciences and other honorary institutions. Prominent among the third generation of the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography and cultural ecological research, he has been a leader in bridging this work with the Chicago School of natural hazards and risk research. In August 2008, he took a position as the first Gilbert F. White Chair in Environment and Society at Arizona State University, where he is affiliated with the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Sustainability. In November 2015, he was named a Regent’s Professor, the highest faculty honor that can be bestowed by Arizona State University.
Charles Warren Thornthwaite was an American geographer and climatologist. He is best known for devising the Thornthwaite climate classification, a climate classification system modified in 1948 that is still in use worldwide, and also for his detailed water budget computations of potential evapotranspiration.
Anthony Bebbington is a geographer, International Director for Natural Resources and Climate Change at the Ford Foundation and Higgins Professor of Environment and Society in the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, USA. He was previously ARC Laureate Professor at the School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia (2016-2019).
William Maxfield Denevan is an American geographer. He is professor emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a prominent member of the Berkeley School of cultural-historical geography. He also worked in the Latin American Center and the Institute for Environmental Studies at Wisconsin. His research interests are in the historical ecology of the Americas, especially Amazonia and the Andes.
William E. Doolittle is an American geographer who is prominent among the fourth generation of the Berkeley School of Latin Americanist Geography. He is currently the Erich W. Zimmermann Regents Professor in Geography at the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in landscapes and agricultural technology in the American Southwest and Mexico.
Andrew Sluyter is an American social scientist who currently teaches as a professor in the Geography and Anthropology Department of the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His interests are the environmental history and historical, cultural, and political ecology of the colonization of the Americas. He has made various contributions to the theorization of colonialism and landscape, the critique of neo-environmental determinism, to understanding pre-colonial and colonial agriculture and environmental change in Mexico, to revealing African contributions to establishing cattle ranching in the Americas, and to the historical geographies of Hispanics and Latinos in New Orleans. With the publication of Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500–1900 and a 2012–13 Digital Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, he has joined a growing number of scholars from multiple disciplines working from the perspective of Atlantic History and using the tools of the Digital Humanities. His latest book, Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity since the Eighteenth Century, co-authored with Case Watkins, James Chaney, and Annie M. Gibson, was awarded the 2015 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize by the American Association of Geographers.
The Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG) was formed in 1970 to foster geographic education and research on Latin America. A board of directors governs CLAG. CLAG publishes a Newsletter and the Journal of Latin American Geography. It also operates CLAGNET, an electronic Listserv for members.
Clarence James Glacken was Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He was known for a 1967 magnum opus, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, that demonstrated how perceptions of the natural environment shaped the course of human events over millennia. He is recognised as a key contributor to the field of environmental history.
Herbert Wilhelmy was a German geographer. Wilhelmy has made significant impact in the area of Latin American regional geography, with a focus on climatic geomorphology and, especially, morphogenetic urban geography.
Woodrow Wilson Borah was a U.S. historian of colonial Mexico, whose research contributions on demography, economics, and social structure made him a major Latin Americanist. With his 1999 death "disappears the last great figure in the generation that presided over the vast expansion of the Latin American scholarly field in the United States during the years following World War II." With colleagues at University of California, Berkeley who came to be known as the "Berkeley School" of Latin American history, Borah pursued projects to gather data from archives on indigenous populations, colonial enterprises, and "land-life" relations that revolutionized the study of Latin American history.
Fred Bowerman Kniffen was an American geographer and distinguished professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University for over 64 years. Kniffen had a background in anthropology, geography, and geology when he arrived at Louisiana State University in the late 1920s. While there, he made great strides in the Department of Geography and Anthropology that led to the development of new research areas, additional courses, and well trained graduate students. Kniffen stressed the importance of learning and understanding the history of geography, along with blending physical geography and anthropology with cultural geography. During Kniffen's time at Louisiana State University, he was an advocate for interdisciplinary research. Kniffen became a distinguished professor in the department in 1966, later becoming Boyd professor in 1967.
Oskar Schmieder was a German geographer and expert in the regional geography of Latin America. He spent his early career with Carl O. Sauer at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was an Associate Professor from 1926 to 1930.
Jonathan Deininger Sauer was a botanist and plant geographer.