.....This article made me go and look up Wilbur Zelinsky and realize much more than the sample article his place in cultural geography. The main point from the article beside getting acquainted with WZ is the emphasis that is brought out regarding field work: go look for and figure out the answer.
.....Small puzzle: Why does Lewis mention that it was an overall relief when WZ stepped down as head of the department? This act as an antithesis to his whole upbeat paper.
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1975 Phograph of Wilbur Zelinsky
2 comments:
An interesting observation in your comment on WZ. I suspect Wilbur was NOT a good department chair (a lot of clever scholars really are not). In fact, he'd probably be as bad a chair as he is a good researcher; there's a degree of impatience with less gifted colleagues that can intrude, I'm told, and then again, a department doesn't really need a great helmsman (or -woman), it needs someone to attend ghastly meetings and put in a lot of time with posterior in chair; not a very enlightening activity. As you might surmise, I'm sympathetic.
I would say the same thing--some very good scholars and very good friends do not make good administrators. I don't think it's an admission of weakness in the grand scheme of things. :-)
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