Geographers on Film is an archival collection and series of more than 550 filmed interviews with experts of the geographic scholar community.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] This is a 40 year long initiative.[9]
The series "highlights leading voices that transformed the discipline of cartography and geography in the 20th century in America."[1]
A prếcis of the collection's point was penned by Maynard Weston Dow:
"August 1970 marked the origin of Geographers on Film (GOF). Participants speak for the record (varying from ten to eighty-nine minutes) that samples of the geographical experience are maintained on video; the ultimate concomitant goal is full transcription. The project resulted from teaching thought and methodology courses; students therein would pore over the writings of cognoscenti to acquire an appreciation for the genesis and development of geography as a field of learning. After considering the advantage of having Aristotle on film it was decided to secure in a permanent medium something of the more fertile minds of modern geography. In the beginning concentration was on elder statespersons, thus coverage spans much of 20th Century geography."[2]
The Library of Congress and the American Association of Geographers hold the films in their collections and have both preserved and digitized them. Initial work for digitization of the films and hosting them on a publicly accessible website was undertaken by a student at Plymouth State College in 1997 as part of her senior project in her Computer Science degree program,[12] on which she collaborated with Dr. Dow. "Geographers on Film are a collection of recorded interviews conducted with hundreds of geographers from August 1970 until the mid-1980s."[1] The National Gallery of the Spoken Word at Michigan State University has a copy, at least some of which is available on line. [A]
As a complement to Geographers on Film, "sixteen thematic video presentations have evolved" which include compilations from the larger oeuvre.[2]
25 Archival Gems
Short clips from 25 of the interviews are available as a 35-minute, streaming video via the AAG website and YouTube.[13] Geographers featured in this video include, in order of appearance:[14]
^"Copies of the GOF collection are deposited in the National Gallery of the Spoken Word (NGSW) at Michigan State University. The Gallery facilitates worldwide utilization of GOF via digitization of the series by providing Internet access to the audio and selected video images. The NGSWis an expansive repository of aural resources, a NSF-funded online fully searchable database of significant spoken word collections."[2]
^ ab"Wes Dow Honored for Geographers On Film". Plymouth Magazine. Plymouth State University. October 20, 2008. GOF productions include 305 film and videotape GOF interviews (149.88 hours) of the thought and reflection of 273 geographers, plus 240 GOF Additional Holdings (137.75 hours), which feature distinctive themes (varying from 10-196 minutes) and embody 130 supplemental geographers expanding the number to 393 geographers incorporated within GOF.
^Gandy, Matthew (2021). "Film as Method in the Geohumanities". GeoHumanities. 7 (2). Taylor & Francis: 605-624 at 622. doi:10.1080/2373566X.2021.1898287. A key intervention here is the "filmgeographies" collective, initiated by Jessica Jacobs and Joseph Palis, that grew out of a regular screening festival for short films held in collaboration with the American Association of Geographers. Other important resources include the "Geographers on film" initiative, underway for over forty years, with the archives co-curated by the AAG and the Library of Congress.
