Derek H. Alderman Derek H. Alderman
Professor of Geography,
Research Fellow, Cultural and Heritage Tourism, Center for Sustainable Tourism
Regional Councillor (Southeast), Association of American Geographers
Past President, Southeastern Division of the Association of
American Geographers (SEDAAG)
Co-Founder (with Bill Graves),
Study of the American
South Specialty Group, AAG
Co-Coordinator (with Carol Kline), RESET Initiative (Race, Ethnicity, and Social Equity in Tourism)
Email: aldermand@ecu.edu or derek.h.alderman@gmail.com
Electronic Copies of Selected Publications
YouTube video of talk at
University of Richmond
A Street fit for a King? MLK Street Naming
Resource
I graduated with a PhD from the University of Georgia in 1998. I am a cultural/historical geographer. I joined the faculty in the Department of Geography at East Carolina University in August of 2000 after holding a tenure-track position in geography and interdisciplinary studies at Georgia College & State University, a visiting position in geography at Georgia Southern University, and temporary faculty/graduate teaching positions at the University of Georgia.
In addition to serving as a faculty member in the
Department of Geography at
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Sustainable
Tourism, ECU
Faculty Associate, Center for Natural Hazards Research, ECU
Faculty Associate, Coastal Resources Management Ph.D. Program, ECU
I have taught several graduate and
undergraduate courses at
Teaching Related
Honors: Distinguished University Teaching
Achievement Award, NCGE (2002); Robert L. Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching,
ECU (2004); Scholar-Teacher Award, ECU (2005); Distinguished Professor of
Teaching Award, ECU (2005); UNC Board of Governors Excellence in Teaching Award,
ECU (highest teaching award at university) (2009).
My Thoughts on Teaching as "Place-Creating" (Comments from Address to Fall Faculty Convocation, 2009)
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
My research interests and
expertise are in the sub-field of cultural geography. I explore topics related to the politics
of space, culture, and representation in American popular culture, particularly
symbolic landscapes and struggles in the southeastern
Research Related
Honors: AAG Meredith Burrill Award (2011); Urban Communication Foundation
Journal Article Award (with Heather Ward) (2010); Globe Book Award (with Owen
Dwyer), Association of American Geographers (2008); Research Honors Award, Southeastern Division of the
Association of American Geographers (2006); Five-Year Research Achievement
Award, East Carolina University (2006); J. Warren Nystrom Dissertation Award, Association of American
Geographers (2000).
Below are my major areas of
published research.
1. Geographies of Public Memory, Commemoration, and Heritage Tourism
My work recognizes the socially constructed and
contested nature of commemorating the past and the importance that space, place,
and scale play in memorialization and the heritage
tourism industry. Where a memorial
is located is not incidental but actively shapes how people conceptualize and
carry out the politics of commemoration and the larger goal of achieving social
justice. Much of the work in this
area has focused on the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr., examining the
role of African Americans in naming streets for the slain civil rights leader,
the controversies they face, and the ultimate locations which these named
streets occupy. I am particularly
interested in understanding how place names serve as arenas for debating the
meaning of King's historical legacy. (Photo:
For more on this issue, see:
Alderman, Derek H., Paul Kingsbury, and Owen Dwyer. (forthcoming, 2013) "Re-examining the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Toward an Empathetic Pedagogy of the Civil Rights Movement." Professional Geographer.
Alderman, Derek H., and Joshua F.J. Inwood. (forthcoming) "Landscapes of Memory and Socially Just Futures." A New Companion to Cultural Geography, Wiley-Blackwell (edited by Nuala Johnson, Richard Schein, and Jamie Winders).
Moreau, Terri and Derek H. Alderman. (forthcoming) "Graffiti Heritage: Civil War Memory in Virginia." Geography and Memory: Explorations in Identity, Place, and Becoming, Palgrave (edited by Owain Jones and Joanne Garde-Hansen).
Modlin,
Alderman, Derek H. 2009. "Virtual Place-Naming, Internet
Domains, and the Politics of Misdirection: The case of
www.martinlutherking.org." Critical Toponymies,
Ashgate Press (edited by Lawrence Berg and Jani
Vuolteenaho), pp. 267-283.
Alderman
Derek. H. and Owen J. Dwyer. 2009. "Monuments and Memorials." International
Encyclopedia of Human Geography ,
Alderman, Derek H. 2008. "Martin Luther King, Jr. Streets in the South: A New Landscape of Memory." Southern Cultures 14(3)88-105.
Dwyer, Owen J. and Derek H. Alderman. 2008. "Memorial Landscapes: Analytic Questions and Metaphors." GeoJournal 73(3): 165-178. Contribution to special issue "Collective Memory and the Politics of Urban Space"(guest edited by Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu).
Alderman,
Derek H. and
Mitchelson, Matthew, Derek H. Alderman, Jeff Popke. 2007. "Branded: The Economic Geographies of MLK Streets." Social Science Quarterly 88(1): 120-145.
2.
Naturework, Biography, and Cultural Geography of
Exotic Species
The theme of "nature work" focuses on how social actors
and groups culturally define and represent their relationship with the physical,
natural environment. Nature does
not exist in some universal state but can be viewed from multiple and sometimes
competing perspectives. I have
employed the concept of "nature work" in writing about the cultural history and
geography of kudzu, a fast growing, exotic vine found throughout the American
South. The plant exists on many
different levels culturally, representing an irritant for some and an icon for
others. My work on kudzu is part of
a larger concern about the role of discourse and claims-making in shaping
environmental perception and action.
More recently, my attention has turned to applying a "biographical"
analysis to kudzu, uncovering the life stories and narratives of the people who
identify with the vine and attempt to shape its image and meaning. (Photo: Kudzu Ghost by Jack
Anthony)
For more on this issue,
see:
Eskridge, Anna and Derek H. Alderman. 2010. "Alien Invaders, Plant Thugs, and the Southern Curse: Framing Kudzu as Environmental Other through Discourses of Fear." Southeastern Geographer 50(1): 110-129. Contribution to special issue "Political Ecology of the South" (guest edited by Ed Carr and Patrick Hurley).
Alderman, Derek H. and Donna G'Segner Alderman. 2008. "Kudzu: A Tale of Two Vines." In
Southern Cultures: The Fifteenth Anniversary Reader, 1993-2008,
Meindl, Chris, Derek H.
Alderman, and Peter Waylen. 2002. "On the Importance
of Environmental Claims Making: The Role of James Wright in Promoting Drainage
of the Everglades in Early 20th Century
3. Geographic Images, Place Representation, and Landscape
Inscription
"Geographic Images" is a theme that recognizes the
powerful role that place representation and landscape inscription plays in
contemporary society, including the selling of tourist destinations in
brochures, the reporting of people and places on the television news,
the politics of place naming, and even the writing of hurricane
graffiti. My work in this area also
focuses on understanding the relationship between global telecommunications
media and traditional regional cultures such as the American South. I have suggested in some of my research
that the Internet can be conceptualized as a form of "electronic folklore" about
people and places. (Photo: hurricane-stressed hotel in
For more on this issue, see:
Alderman, Derek H. 2012. "Cultural Change and Diffusion: Geographical Patterns, Social Processes, and Contact Zones." 21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook (Vol. 1), SAGE Publications (edited by Joseph Stoltman), pp. 123-134.
Alderman, Derek H. (forthcoming)
"Internet Representations of the South." Contributed 1,200 word entry to New
Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Media,
Alderman, Derek H. (forthcoming)
"You Might be a Redneck if..." Contributed 700 word entry to New Encyclopedia
of Southern Culture: Class,
Rose-Redwood, Reuben and Derek H. Alderman. 2011. "Critical Interventions in Political Toponymy." ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10(1): 1-6. Referred introduction to special thematic issue guest edited by the authors.
Moreau, Terri, and Derek H. Alderman. 2011. "Graffiti Hurts and the Eradication of Alternative Landscape Expression." Geographical Review. 101(1): 106-124. Contribution to special issue "Popular Icons of Political Identity" (guest edited by Pauliina Raento).
Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Derek H. Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. 2010. "Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-Name Studies." Progress in Human Geography. 34(4): 453-470.
Gentry, Glenn W. and Derek H. Alderman. 2007. "Trauma Written in the Flesh: Tattoos as Memorials and Stories." In Narrating the Storm: Sociological Stories of Hurricane Katrina, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (edited by Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo and Kristen Barber), pp. 184-197.
4. Cultural
and Historical Geography of the American South
Much of my work is undertaken with the goal of
understanding the cultural and historical geography of the American South and
the role of change, continuity, and contest in shaping the region's
landscapes. Borrowing a term from
American Studies scholar Lothar Honnighausen, I study the South as a "value-charged symbolic
space." Underlying this research is
an appreciation for the human agency and intentionality behind the construction
of landscapes -- whether it involves analyzing tourist inscriptions on the wall
outside of Graceland, public reactions to the expansion of Wal-Mart, the transcultural geography of NASCAR, or the marketing of
heritage in the eastern North Carolina antique tourism industry. (Photo: Ticket
for tour through
For more on this issue, see:
Alderman, Derek H. and G. Rebecca Dobbs. 2011. "Geographies of Slavery: Of Theory, Method, and Intervention." Historical Geography. Non-refereed introduction to special thematic issue guest edited by the authors.
Alderman, Derek H. and William Graves. 2011. "Innovations in Southern Studies within Geography." Southeastern Geographer 51(4): 505-512. Non-refereed introduction to special thematic issue guest edited by the authors.
Mitchelson, Ronald L. and Derek H.
Alderman. 2011. "
Edwards, Mike B., Derek H.
Alderman, and Steve G. Estes. 2010. "An Appraisal of Stock Car Racing's
Economic and Geographic Development in
Alderman, Derek H. 2007. "Social Justice in the American South." Southeastern Geographer 47(1): 86-91. Non-refereed introduction to 7 essay forum organized by Derek Alderman.
Mitchell,
Jones,
Kimberly L. and Derek H. Alderman. 2003. "Antiques Tourism and the Selling of
Heritage in
Good, Daniel B., Derek H. Alderman, and Delma Presley.
2001. "Tomato, Snap, and Fly: Postal Records and Place-Names in Local
Settlement Histories."
ONGOING PROJECTS
Assessing the
Representation of African Americans in Southern Travel Brochures: The Importance
of Socially Responsible Tourism Marketing
Few scholars have conducted a critical appraisal of the place
of African Americans in the marketing of
Photograph of the
Hallelujah Sculpture near the future site of the
Traditionally, historic sites in the American South have not engaged visitors in critical discussions of slavery. Some scholars have used the term "symbolic annihilation" to capture the manner in which these sites have failed to represent the identities and histories of the enslaved as they valorize the accomplishments and worldviews of whites. Yet, there are early indications that this pattern has begun to change as tourists seek out and are offered fuller and sometimes traumatic representations of African American history. In understanding how slave histories are resurrected and written into memorials, museums, and other public places of memory, it is perhaps useful to think about it as a process of "symbolic excavation." The metaphor of excavation also prompts us to realize that the unearthing of difficult and long suppressed (and repressed) historical narratives can only happen through memory work, the active recovery and representation of the past. My work in this area attempts to identify the process and politics by which histories of slavery are "annihilated" or "excavated" publicly, both in terms of representation and narration of the story of slavery.
Biography and Biogeography: The Role of Natureworkers in Shaping the Environmental Geography of Exotic Species
The term "naturework" (from
sociologist Gary Fine) is used to describe the symbolic and material practices
that surround how the natural environment is experienced, interpreted, and used
by people. Implicit in this
framework is an appreciation for how social agents (as "natureworkers") creatively define and redefine the cultural
meaning of nature for themselves and others. Rather than advocating an overly
structural understanding of the human-nature connection, a natureworker approach focuses on the role that human
creativity, biography, representation, and the work of landscape modification
plays in historical environmental geography. In my current work, I am interested in
applying the concept of natureworker to the history of
kudzu in the American South, focusing on the social actors and groups
behind the physical cultivation and introduction of the invasive vine as well as
those people who identified with kudzu on a cultural level and propogated it
symbolically. The photo to the right depicts the botantical efforts of
early 20th century Florida environmentalist and entrepreneur Charles
Pleas. Pleas and his wife established the first commercial crop of
kudzu. The photo to the left shows a cover from the 1960s and 1970s
protest newspaper "The Kudzu," published by David Doggett and other youth
in Mississippi as a way of expressing a white southern progressive view on
racial and class politics. Ironically, Doggett and his colleagues chose to
communicate the indigenous nature of their protest movement by associating
their publication with a non-native plant. In different ways, Pleas and
Doggett illustrate the intimate connections
between
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