Thinking about the American Southwest with Scott Warren

For many of us, the American Southwest is distinctive because of its landscape, culture, and history. We see, for instance, its mountains, deserts, and canyons. We are aware of its diverse cultures. And we have some understanding of the Indigenous, Mexican, and U.S. histories that have brought us to the present moment. But a careful examination of these taken-for-granted features reveals that there is more than meets the eye. Beneath this surface we find that the American Southwest is as much a product of the imagination as it is a geographical fact. In this presentation we take insights from the field of cultural geography to consider how the Southwest came to be a distinctive region both on the ground and in our minds, and we question whether these distinctive landscapes conceal as much as they reveal about our southwestern society.

This program is cohosted by San Tan Valley Library.

About the speaker:

Scott Warren lives in Ajo, Arizona where he works as an academic geographer. His research, teaching, and experience is at the intersection of people and place in the broad Mexico-U.S. borderland. The landscapes of Arizona and the continental southwest inspire his work.