Harvey K. Flad
Emeritus Professor of Geography
box: 336
phone: 845-437-5540
B.A., English and Geology, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1962.
M.A., Ph.D., Geography, Syracuse University, 1973.
After completing his undergraduate work, Harvey Flad spent two years in Nigeria as a Peace Corps volunteer and worked at the American Geographical Society. He then began graduate studies at Syracuse University, where he received a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Ethnic Studies to complete his dissertaion research on urban American Indians. Appointed to the Vassar faculty in 1972, he chaired the geography program from 1983-98, the Department of Geology and Geography for the decade 1988-98, and was Director of the American Culture program from 1998-2001; he has also co-taught in the American Culture, Urban Studies, and Environmental Studies programs.
In 1997-98, Flad was a Fulbright Fellow in Kyrgyzstan where he lectured on the geography of North America, environmental advocacy and planning, and American studies, while doing research on aspects of the historical and cultural landscapes of Central Asia. He has served as a consultant to government agencies and to a number of regional museums on exhibits and national publications, such as the National Geographic and the New York Times ,for articles related to the cultural landscape and development in the Hudson Valley. His expert testimony on the aesthetic impact of a proposed nuclear power plant was cited as being most significant in its eventual denial. He has authored or co-authored a number of environmental impact and management plans, especially for river shorelands in the bioregion. Current teaching and research interests include cultural, historical and social geography; urban and regional geography; ethnicity; material culture; conservation history; community development; urban, rural and small town revitalization; land use policy and planning; landscape aesthetics; historic preservation; scenic evaluation; environmental design; landscape design history; and geographic education.
Recent scholarship:
- 2002 Commentator. Place, Region and Identity - Session III of The Lowenthal Papers: papers in honor of David Lowenthal. Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles, CA (March, 2002)
- 2001 "Reading Nuclear Landscapes in America and Central Asia: The Literary Contributions of Terry Tempest Williams and Chingiz Aitmatov, and the Development of the Civic Society." Presented at session on "Fallout," American Studies Association, Washington, D.C.
- 2001 "The Hudson River Valley and the Geographical Imagination," in FROM THE HUDSON TO THE HAMPTONS: SANPSHOTS OF THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA, edited by I. M. Miyares, M. Pavlovskaya, and G. A. Pope, pp. 8-15. NY: Association of American Geographers.
- 2000 "Following 'the pleasant paths of Taste': The Traveler's Eye and New World Landscapes," in HUMANIZING LANDSCAPES: GEOGRAPHY, CULTURE AND THE MAGOON COLLECTION, exhibition catalogue, pp. 69-102. Poughkeepsie, NY: Vassar College, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center.
- 2000 Co-curator, with David Lowenthal (Geography, Univ. of London) and Karen Lucic (Art History, Vassar College). "Humanizing Landscapes: Geography, Culture and the Magoon Collection," exhibition, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Gallery, Vassar College.
- 2000 "The Parlor in the Landscape: Nineteenth Century Mountain House Resorts and the Shaping of Nature," in EUROPEAN IDENTITY AND ITS EXPRESSION IN PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, LITERTURE AND ART. Bergen, Norway: International Society for the Study of European Ideas.
Other recent publications and research have continued Dr. Flad's efforts in urban waterfront revitalization, landscape design history as well as his most recent experience in Central Asia. From the latter, for example, he is the author of more than 200 entries on Kyrgyzstan for "The Columbia Gazetteer of the World,” Columbia University Press, 1998. Contemporary issues of scenic and environmental assessment have most recently been addressed in the article "Country Clutter: Visual Pollution and the Rural Roadscape,” published in "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Scoial Science" (Sept. 1997), and in a series of conference papers on urban waterfront revitalization, such as "On the Waterfront: (Re)presenting the Past" and "Whose Waterfront? Issues of Access in Waterfront Planning and Development" (March, 1999). The majority of his recent publications and papers have examined the development of landscape design in America and its relationship to changing cultural evaluation of nature and society, especially in the mid-19th C. He has particularly focused on the role of Andrew Jackson Downing and the creation of an American landscape ideal, along with insights into the gendering of American spaces, through the presentation of numerous conference papers, with titles such as: "The Parlor in the Landscape: 19th C. Mountain House Resorts and the Shaping of Nature"; "Roots of the Olmsted Vision: Downing, Vaux and Landscape Design"; and "Beauty and the Brewer: Matthew Vassar's Landscapes and A.J. Downing" (presented in October, 1998).
Earth Science and Geography
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