David Seamon
David Seamon (PhD, 1977, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts USA) is Professor Emeritus of Environment-Behavior and Place Studies in the Department of Architecture at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. Trained in behavioral geography and environment-behavior research, he is interested in a phenomenological approach to place, architecture, environmental experience, and environmental design as placemaking. His books include DWELLING, PLACE AND ENVIRONMENT: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERSON AND WORLD (1985); DWELLING, SEEING, AND DESIGNING: TOWARD A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ECOLOGY (1993); GOETHE'S WAY OF SCIENCE: A PHENOMENOLOGY OF NATURE; and A GEOGRAPHY OF THE LIFEWORLD: MOVEMENT, REST AND ENCOUNTER (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979/Routledge Revival series, 2015). His most recent books are LIFE TAKES PLACE: PHENOMENOLOGY, LIFEWORLDS AND PLACE MAKING (2018) and PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PLACE, LIFEWORLDS, AND LIVED EMPLACEMENT (2023). Both books are published by Routledge.
Supervisors: Anne Buttimer
Address: Architecture Dept
211 Seaton Hall
Kansas State Univ
Manhattan, KS 66506-2901 USA
Supervisors: Anne Buttimer
Address: Architecture Dept
211 Seaton Hall
Kansas State Univ
Manhattan, KS 66506-2901 USA
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Papers by David Seamon
An “in memoriam” for environmental psychologist Leanne Rivlin, who died this past January.
An account by EAP editor David Seamon discussing how EAP’s graphic design has shifted over the years, mostly because of graphic designer Robin Williams’ superb guide, Non-Designer’s Design Book.
A special section on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of geographer Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness; commentaries on Relph’s book are by photographer Mick Yates; literature scholar Eric Prieto; geographers Jarrod Lynn and Xu Huang; and philosophers Jeff Malpas, Bruce Janz, and Ingrid Leman Stefanovic; a concluding section is by Relph, who considers the book’s meaning for present and future thinking about places.
An entry by architects Mark David Major and Nadia Mounajjed, who consider how light and shadow contribute to the urban experience of the traditional market of Souq Waqif, located in Qatar’s capital city of Doha.
You are welcome to forward the PDF to anyone you think might be interested. A complete digital EAP archive (1990-2026) is available at: http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/1522.
David Seamon
Editor, Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology
Final copy of an article published in celebration of 50 years of humanistic geography:
This article is a first-person account of my encounter with humanistic and phenomenological geography. I review how I first became involved with geography and my graduate experience at Clark University, which in the 1970s was a major center of humanistic and phenomenological work, mostly because of geographer Anne Buttimer, today recognized as a founder of the humanistic tradition. I consider how phenomenology became central to my research and writing, and how my interest in what came to be called ‘environment-behavior research’ eventually led to my involvement with architecture, planning, and design programs. In the last portion of this article, I overview my recent work investigating place experience and lived emplacement, particularly the theme of how places change processually (Seamon, 2018a, 2023). I end by suggesting that the current disciplinary emphasis on ‘critical theory’ and ‘critical thinking’ might be usefully complemented with ‘empathetic thinking’ and a revitalized humanistic and phenomenological geography.
“Book notes” on Seattle artist Iskra Johnson’s The Water Tower Project, which includes some 20 water-tower prints created during the first year of the Covid pandemic; and philosophers Curtis Hutt and Halla Kim’s Cosmopolitan Husserl, an edited collection that considers the current-day significance of articles on “renewal” that phenomenology founder Edmund Husserl wrote in the 1920s for Kaizō, a Japanese philosophical journal.
Philosopher Jeff Malpas’ “In the Care of Place,” which discusses the Portuguese notion of saudade—a Portuguese words that designates a sense of loss and desire, including the longing for place.
Artist and writer Vicki King’s description of her most recent artistic project—what she calls “Abject Sublime” and describes as a reflection of “the Anthropocene era in which we’re terrifyingly immersed.”
German geographer Axel Prestes Dürrnagel’s examination of peri-urban lifeworlds in Mosambique’s capital city Maputo.
Educator Linden Sturgis’s consideration of how Goethean phenomenology can sensitize experiencers to the world of clouds.
A complete digital EAP archive (1990-2025) is available at: http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/1522
David Seamon
Editor, Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology
first draft of a paper prepared for a special session, “Humanism and Geography after Yi-Fu Tuan,” International Conference of Historical Geographers, Shanghai, China, July 14-18, 2025