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Previous graduate student

Blake Mayberry

Office:402 Lindley
Phone: (785) 760-6252
Email: bmayberry@ku.edu

  • M.A. Geography, University of Nebrasks-Omaha, 2008
    Thesis: "Framing the 'Fragile Giants': Aestheticization of Landscape in Western Iowa"
  • B.A., Geography and Urban Studies (with Honors), University of Iowa, 2004
    Thesis: "Water, Urbanization, and Cultural Production in the Desert Southwest"

 

Publications/Presentations

  

Research Interests

Manuscripts currently in review:

“He is a good horse, and we love him: Media and landscape in the Indian Removal Period.”Aether: Journal of Media Geography. Anticipated publication date in late 2011. 

“Framing the ‘Fragile Giants.’”Geographical Bulletin. May 2011.

Presentations:

"The Land of Allium: An exploration into the magic of place." Assocation of American Geographers annual meeting, Seattle, WA, April 2011.

"Telling Stories: The discursive foundation of the tallgrass prairie restoration movement." Great Plains Regional Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Lawrence, KS October 2010.

“’Bury me on the prairie’: The social construction of nature in the postrural Midwest.” Mid-America Humanities Conference in Lawrence, KS, April 3, 2010.

“He is a good horse and we love him: Media and landscape in the Indian Removal Period.” Association of American Geographers annual meeting in Washington, DC, March 18, 2010.

“He is a good horse, and we love him: Media and landscape in the Indian Removal Period.” KU Geography Graduate Student Organization Brown Bag Colloquium, October 30, 2009.

“Cultural Geography of the Loess Hills: A Historical Journey.”  Presented at the 31st annual Loess Hills Prairie Seminar in Onawa, IA, May 2008

“The Untold Trail of Tears – Potawatomi Forced Migration onto the Plains.”  Presented at the 34th Annual Great Plains Conference in Omaha, NE, April 2008

“Cultural Geography of the Loess Hills: A Historical Journey.”  Presented at the 30th annual Loess Hills Prairie Seminar in Onawa, IA, June 2007

“No More Chasing Smokestacks: Promoting Sense of Place as an Economic Development Strategy.” Presented at the Glenwood Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Betterment and Beautification Dinner and Awards Program, March 2005

 

  

At a basic level I’m interested in how people shape their environment.  The production of the cultural landscape is my primarily research focus, but this has led me into urban planning, media studies, historical geography, sense of place, environmental history, and the social construction of nature. 

My research has ranged from how place imagery influences urban planning and natural resource management policies, to how media representations of landscape are used to justify changes in natural resource policy, and how normative ideas of landscape influenced Indian Removal policy in the United States during the 19th century.  I’m currently engaged in an ethnographic study of a non-profit organization restoring native prairie in Kansas, where I’m uncovering the discursive and performative aspects of sense of place, as well as how cultural perceptions of what is “natural” play into the modification of the cultural landscape. 


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