Yi-fu Tuan

Yi-Fu Tuan was born in Tientsin, China on December 5, 1930. He was the son of a diplomat and moved to this country in 1951. Yi-Fu Tuan was educated in China, Australia and the Phillipines before attending Oxford University where he received his Bachelors degree in 1951 and his Masters degree in 1955. In 1957 Tuan received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkley. Immediatley after getting his Ph.D. Tuan took a position as an instructor of geography at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Yi-fu Tuan

He moved on to the University of Chicago in 1958 before settling at the University of New Mexico in 1959. It was here at the University of New Mexico that Tuan experienced the landscapes of the southwest that would influence his early writings. In 1965 Tuan moved again to become an associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto, in Ontario, Canada. This was a position that he would hold until his departure for the University of Minnesota two years later. He worked at the University of Minnesota longer than he had worked anywhere previously, 16 years (1968-1984). The same year that he moved to UM Tuan was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. This was the first of numerous honors to be bestowed upon Yi-Fu Tuan throughout his career. In 1973 Tuan was given the "meritous contribution to geography" award by the Association of American Geographers. In 1984 Tuan left the University of Minnesota for a position as a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1987, while working at the University of Wisconsin Tuan was given the Cullum Geographical Medal by the American Geographical Association. Yi-fu Tuan is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a respected member of the Association of American Geographers, the Association for Asian Studies, the American Geographical Society, and the Association for the Study of Man-Environment Relations. Tuan was also elected the 'Best Professor' by the Wisconsin Student Association, which means that he connected to his students as well as other scholars. Yi-Fu Tuan retired from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1998 as J. K. Wright and Vilas Professor Emeritus. He is names Phi Beta Kappa Frank M. Updike Memorial Scholar (2002-2003). Dr. Turn published many essays and books, including The Climate of New Mexico. (with Cyril Everard and J.G. Widdison. Santa Fe: State Planning Office, 1969), China (London: Longmans.,Chicago: Aldine, 1970), Space and Place: the Perspectives of Experience. (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press; London: Edward Arnold's, 1977, paperback edition, University of Minnesota Press, 1979. Portuguese transl., Sao Paulo: Difel, 1983.), Landscapes of Fear (New York: Pantheon; Oxford: Blackwell's, 1980.), and Segmented Worlds and Self: Group Life and Self-consciousness (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982).