PROFESSOR JAMES TYNER
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY 

Dear Colleague,

We soon will be publishing the writings and discussing the ideas of Professor James Tyner, one of the finest scholars in the United States. A central focus of Tyner's 18 books and over 100 refereed articles is the causes, sources and meanings of collective forms of violence. Library of Social Science is excited to be working with this intense, distinguished scholar.

A short biography is directly below. However, you can learn much more about Professor Tyner by reading the terrific write-up created by the American Association of Geographers upon Tyner's receipt of the AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honor.

With regards,

Richard Koenigsberg, Director
Library of Social Science

 Geographer Examines Ties Between Violence and Landscapes | Kent State University

JAMES TYNER
Department of Geography, Kent State University

Jim Tyner is Professor of Geography and Fellow of the American Association of Geographers. He is the author of 18 books, including War, Violence, and Population: Making the Body Count, which received the AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution to Geography. Jim is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and his other honors include the AAG Glenda Laws Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues. His research interests include the political economy of violence and the histories and geographies of 20th century Marxism.

James Tyner, Kent State University

James A. Tyner models the best practices of engaged and relevant scholarship in critical human geography. In more than two decades of professional work, the majority of them at Kent State University in Ohio, Tyner’s academic productivity has been prolific—more than twenty books; at least one hundred and twenty refereed articles; and myriad conference presentations, panels, and keynotes.

The distinction of his scholarship extends beyond conventional quantitative assessments, however; Tyner’s evolving scholarship has provided a powerful moral and ethical voice for those who study social justice, conflict, and violence.

His book War, Violence, and Population: Making the Body Count provides a grounded analysis of violence and conflict in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Rwanda. It received the prestigious Meridian Book Award in 2010. Tyner’s work on conflict and violence has become more focused on South East Asia, specifically Cambodia. He provides novel and innovative analyses of the places, landscapes and experiences of violence.

Tyner’s approach to this work is profound as he couples a continued theoretical journey with, as one essayist, Sabina Lawreniuk in the AAG Review of Books, puts it, “the fortitude to trace meticulously through the material, nonmaterial and never materialized fragments of Cambodia’s past—texts, landscapes, bodies, bones and memories” to ask how Cambodia’s violence was made.

Explorations of memory and memorialization appear elsewhere in Tyner’s individual and shared work, always with an insistence and invitation for moral and ethical analysis on the part of the reader. As one of the letters of support noted, his “broader research trajectory takes the lives of the marginal and vulnerable seriously.” Reviewers of his work, elsewhere, describe it as accessible, powerful, timely, vivid and compelling.

Tyner’s approach to scholarship reveals an engagement with place-based fieldwork, archival work, but also, the applications of remote-sensing and hydrological analyses. His research has been supported by two significant National Science Foundation grants and has been recognized repeatedly by his peers inside and outside of Geography. He has also been recognized as a researcher by several AAG Specialty groups and has received both the Glenda Laws Award, the Jim Blaut Award, and the Julian Minghi Book Award.

A complement to Tyner’s powerful and relevant academic scholarship is his public scholarship at Kent State University and beyond. Tyner has been recognized by his colleagues at Kent State for his leadership in organizing scholarly events related to memory, violence and conflict. He was recently appointed as Director of the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence.

Tyner’s commitment and generosity extends to his mentoring and encouragement of graduate students and junior scholars, which has been repeatedly recognized at his home institution. The professional pathway of Tyner reveals a significant and enduring contribution to transformative and grounded research, an indefatigable productivity for formal academic and public scholarship, and a deep and enduring commitment to social justice and human dignity. For these reasons, James A. Tyner is the 2021 recipient of AAG’s Distinguished Scholarship Honors.

2021 Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors