Denis Cosgrove
| Denis Edmund Cosgrove | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 3 May 1948 Liverpool, England, UK |
| Died | 21 March 2008 Los Angeles, USA |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Geography |
| Alma mater |
Oxford University University of Toronto |
Denis E. Cosgrove (3 May 1948 Liverpool – 21 March 2008 Los Angeles) was an Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. His father was a bank clerk and, ironically enough, as a child his school made him stop taking geography because they told his mother it was a girls subject and that he must do Greek and Latin instead to stay in the "A" stream. He went to school in Oxford and the University of Toronto. He was a cultural geographer, whose work focused upon the concepts of landscape and representations. He was a leading proponent of the 'new cultural geography' which encouraged a focus upon the complex interconnections between the many different aspects of landscapes and the world.
Denis was the second eldest of six children and was raised in a very Catholic family. He was married twice and had two daughters and one son.
Cosgrove's research interests evolved from a focus on the meanings of landscape in human and cultural geography, especially in Western Europe since the 15th century, to a broader concern with the role of spatial images and representations in the making and communicating of knowledge. His work included how visual images have been used in history to shape geographical imaginations and in connection between geography as a formal discipline, imaginative expressions of geographical knowledge and experience in the visual arts (including cartography).
This broad concern was pursued through a series of focussed studies: of landscape transformation, design and images in 16th-century Venice and north Italy, of landscape writings by authors such as John Ruskin, of landscape, space and performance in 20th century Rome, of cosmography in early modern Europe (1450–1650), and of the history of Western imaginings of the globe and whole earth. He has also written extensively on theory in cultural geography and edited for six years the journal Ecumene (now titled Cultural Geographies) which publishes cross-disciplinary work on environment, culture and meaning.
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