Yi-Fu Tuan: Difference between revisions

Born in 1930 in [[Tianjin|Tientsin]], [[China]] to an [[upper-class]] family and was educated in China, [[Australia]], the [[Philippines]] and the [[United Kingdom]]. He attended [[University College, London]], but graduated from the [[University of Oxford]] with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] and [[Master of Arts|M.A.]] in 1951 and 1955 respectively.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.yifutuan.org/Tuan%20Curriculum%20Vitae.pdf | title = Curriculum Vitae Yi-Fu Tuan | date = 2008-04-08 | accessdate = 2011-02-20 | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20111002212037/http://www.yifutuan.org/Tuan%20Curriculum%20Vitae.pdf | archivedate = 2011-10-02 | df = }}</ref> From there he went to [[California]] to continue his geographic education. He received his [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in 1957 from the [[University of California, Berkeley]].

Tuan is most interested in ambivalent human experiences that resonate with the opposing pulls of space and place, the intimate and the distant. His approach is suggested by titles such as ''Segmented Worlds and Self, Continuity and Discontinuity, Morality and Imagination, Cosmos and Hearth, Dominance and Affection,'' and above all, ''Space and Place''. <ref>{{cite book |last=Tuan |first=Yi-Fu |title=Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience |place=Minneapolis |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=1977}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tuan |first=Yi-Fu |title=Segmented Worlds and Self: Group Life and Individual Consciousness |place=Minneapolis |publisher= University of Minnesota Press |year=1982}}</ref><ref>{{Cite article |last=Tuan |first=Yi-Fu |year=1984 |title=Continuity and Discontinuity |journal=Geographical Review |volume=74 |pages=245–256 |url=http://www. jstor.org/stable/214937 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020025208/http://www./ |archivedate=2007-10-20 |df= }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tuan |first=Yi-Fu |title=Morality and Imagination: Paradoxes of Progress |place=Madison |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1989}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tuan |first=Yi-Fu |title=Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite’s Perspective |place=Minneapolis |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=1996}}</ref> These existential dialectics propel people between a pole of experience characterized by rootedness, security and grounding, on the one hand, and a pole characterized by outreach, potentiality and expansiveness, on the other hand. These opposites interact: there is a certain distance in what is nearby and a certain nearness in what is far away. Therefore ambivalence is the norm when it comes to the human experience of dwelling in the world with its existential pulls between space and place, mobility and stasis, the distant view and embodied engagement.