John Pickles (1952-) currently serves as the Phillips Distinguished Professor of International Studies in the Department of Geography at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

. Pickles attended the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

, with a minor in

Geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

, and a master's degree in geography. He later earned doctorate degrees from the

University of Natal The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu- ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, United States. He joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001 as the Earl N Phillips Distinguished Professor of International Studies and served as the Chair of the Department of Geography between 2007-2013. Pickles has also held academic appointments at the universities of Kentucky, Minnesota, and West Virginia; at the Ohio State University; at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State); and at Natal Pietermaritzburg and Trieste. Pickles is a scholar in the areas of

critical cartography Critical cartography is a set of mapping practices and methods of analysis grounded in critical theory, specifically the thesis that maps reflect and perpetuate relations of power, typically in favor of a society's dominant group. Critical cartogra ...

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...

geography of media and communication Geography of media and communication (also known as communication geography, media geography and geographies of media) is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary research area bringing together human geography with media studies and communicati ...

and post-socialist spaces. He is the author of numerous books, including ''Phenomenology, Science, and Geography: Space and the Human Sciences'', ''Ground Truth: The Social Implications of Geographical Information Systems'', and ''A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the Geo-Coded World''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickles, John Living people English geographers American geographers University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Historians of cartography Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of Mansfield College, Oxford Pennsylvania State University alumni University of Natal alumni