August 15 , 2005

Dear Colleague,

         The course of literary output in a scholar's life is a curve that begins modestly, reaches a high point in mid-career, and then dribbles to a close. One starts with a short paper, a paper in a symposium arranged by one's mentor, a long refereed paper in the premier journal, a scholarly book, a multi-authored book, a conference volume, a memoir, an introduction to some else's book, an afterword to someone else's book, endorsements (dust-jacket literature) of the works of young scholars. For quite some years now, my literary output is pretty much restricted to the last category. Here is a recent sample.

         "At last geography has a new voice--original, powerful, and eloquent." For Paul C. Adams, The Boundless Self: Communication in Physical and Virtual Spaces (Syracuse, 2005).

         "Reading a life that is radically different from mine, yet so reassuringly the same in everything from a taste of warm cloverleaf rolls in the dining car to a yearning for spiritual transcendence, reminds me of how one human being can miraculously connect with another through integrity and art." For Deborah Larsen, The Tulip and the Pope (Knopf, 2005).

         Here is the last paragraph of a preface I wrote for Allison Hayes-Conroy, South Jersey Under the Stars: Essays on Culture, Agriculture, and Place (Fairleigh Dickinson, 2005). "Allison Hayes-Conroy's book is, for me, a wonderful achievement in at least three ways... [after detailing two ways--two wonders, I go on to say] The third wonder for me is one of hope. I used to feel rather hopeless because all questions having to do with ecology and 'the good life'  are so enormously complex. I used to think that one has to be middle-aged or even old before one has enough experience and knowledge to tackle them. But no longer. Allison Hayes-Conroy wrote her book at the remarkable age of twenty-two, which suggests to me that young people can lead us to a better world not only by their vitalism and idealism, but also by their knowledge and wisdom."

         I have received endorsements in my time. The one, orally delivered, that has stayed and inspired me to this day is the one John Kesseli, my Berkeley mentor, gave me in 1975. He was dying of emphysema. He wanted to say something commendatory about my ventures into humanistic geography, further and further away from the hard empiricism of geomorphology, at what he knew to be our last meeting. His immortal words were, "Well, if you can get away with it, I guess it's all right."

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu