April 12th 3:00 pm - 4:15 pm
Encore for More presents
Speaker: John Mack
"Scaling the Heights: A Human History of the Four Peaks"
Standing erect as a prominent landmark on the eastern skyline of Phoenix, the Four Peaks have been important to all who have lived here. Visible for many miles, they are one of the most recognized landmarks in central Arizona. From the beginning of human habitation in the Valley, these Peaks featured prominently in the imagination of the human beings who lived in its shadow.
This presentation will examine the differing meanings that waves of settlers have attached to the Peaks. As human beings have built their homes and communities, differing perceptual landscapes have overlapped the physical one. By examining these evolving environmental perceptions, this presentation will discuss the complex relationship between human beings and their geography in an attempt to better understand the changes that have occurred and continue to manifest themselves in human culture and societies. The presentation will demonstrate how changing perceptions of the Four Peaks reflect a broader pattern of change from a religious attitude in which awe was combined with aversion, to an aesthetic attitude that shifted from a sense of the sublime to a feeling for the picturesque, to the modern evaluation of mountains as a recreational resource.
About the Presenter: John Mack is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a master's degree in Russian history and a Ph.D. in American history. His book on the settlement of southeast Kansas, Bucking the Railroads on the Kansas Frontier: the struggle over land claims by homesteading Civil Veterans, 1867-1876, was published by McFarland Press in 2012.
Attendee #1
