Lhasa, Tibet viewed from the path to the Potala Palace, May 2006
Michael W. Longan
Associate Professor of Geography, Department of Geography and Meteorology at Valparaiso University.
Me on the train in the rain in Tiny
Town, Colorado
(Summer 2000)
Ph.D. University of Colorado
at Boulder, 2000
M.A. University of Arizona 1995
B.A. University of Colorado
at Boulder 1993
Specialties: Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Urban Planning, Communication Geography, Landscape, neighborhood and community activism, cyberspace and community networking, China and East Asia.
Teaching
This Fall I am teaching World
Human Geography, Urban
Geography, and Cartography.
Other courses I have taught at VU include , Research Design, Economic Geography, Environmental Conservation, , Urban and Regional Planning, Urban and Regional Planning, and Culture, Nature, Landscape, Economic Geography, Geography of Asia: China and Japan and Geography of Cyberspace (an advanced course in cultural geography).
Previously to teaching at VU I taught at Gustavus Adophus College in St. Peter, Minnesota and at the University of Colorado at Boulder where I taught Intro to Environmental Studies, Cartography, Community and Globalization, Environmental Attitudes and Landscape Change, Geography of Cyberspace, and World Regional Geography.
I also serve as advisor for the Urban Studies Minor.
Research
I have research interests in urban, cultural,and communication geography. In particular I am interested in the geography of cyberspace and the community networking movement. Currently I am working on a Virtual Regional Geography of Northwest Indiana which asks questions about what Northwest Indiana looks like from the perspective of cyberspace. I am interested in how and why people represent places in Northwest Indiana online. With the help of two undergraduate research assistants I have completed the first phase of this research focusing on analysis of place-related web sites in Northwest Indiana. I have also started interviewing people who create and maintain these web sites. I hope to find out more about how the Internet is (or is not) helping to transform local politics, aid in local economic development, and foster social ties.
Me
and the Fremont Troll
Under the Aurora Bridge in Seattle
(Summer 1998)
On top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London
(Summer 2003)
The Biggest
Ball of Twine in Minnesota.
(Darwin, Summer 2000)
My car parks in silent reverence before mysterious Carhenge
in Alliance, Nebraska.
(Summer 2000)
In addition to this research on the Internet and community I am interested more culturally oriented research on"everyday virtual reality" focusing initially upon the representation and production of landscape in video games. I am interested in the extent to which the activity of virtual landscape production in video games may subvert or reinforce dominant ways of seeing and producing landscapes in the "real world."
In the past I organized an informal faculty seminar on Qualitative Data Analysis and I am available to consult with faculty and students on campus about qualitative research and using NVivo.
I am the Communication Director for the Communication Geography Specialty Group of the AAG.
I am on the Editorial Board of Places Online.
At the Mingsha Shan
near Dunhuang, China
(Summer 2006)
At Stonehenge
(Summer 2003)
Interests
Since
I bought a house with a big garden plot, I have become a Gardener. I
also bought a keyboard and have been playing piano quite a bit.
I was
faculty advisor for the VU
Hockey Club played intramural floor hockey for the Chiefs and am
a big fan of the Gustavus
Hockey Team. I have never actually played ice hockey but have vowed
to do so someday.
I have
been exploring the bike
trails of Northwest Indiana as time and weather permit.
I was
a member of the Trombone
Choir and the Brass
Choir at Gustavus.
When
I lived in Boulder, I played Trombone in the Boulder
Concert Band.
I was
a member of the CU Bands including the CU Basketball Band and the C.U. Golden Buffalo Marching
Band. The highlight of my marching band career was a trip to the
Aloha Bowl in Hawaii.
I was
a member of the Pride of Arizona
Marching Band while at the University of Arizona.
I'm
from Lakewood, Colorado
where I attended Green
Mountain High School.
Recent Travels
In
July I went camping North of Fort Collins, Colorado.
In
June 2007 I had an opportunity to spend a day in New Orleans to see
the recovery efforts (and lack of recovery) first hand.
In
April 2007 I went to San Francisco for the AAG meeting and spent a day
walking around one of my favorite cities.
In
May and June of 2006 I traveled to China with faculty from VU. We visited
Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hangzhou among other places.
In
June 2004 I traveled to Boulder Colorado for the Geography
Faculty Development Alliance's Early Career Faculty Workshop. See
the GEO/MET
Teaching Resource Center for some valuable teaching resources I
found as a result of participating in this workshop.
In
May and June 2004 I traveled to Japan and China with a group of faculty
from VU.
In
June 2003 I traveled to Cambridge, London, and Cardiff.
I have
returned to Minnesota several times since I moved to Indiana and regularly
go home to Colorado for the holidays.
Here
are some pictures from my summer 2002 trip to Northern Minnesota.
At the Home
Office in Wahoo, Nebraska
(Summer 2000)
Hermann
the German in New Ulm, Minnesota
(Summer 2000)
A brotosaurus at Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South
Dakota (Summer 2000)
On Mt. Fuji
(May 2004)
