Denis Cosgrove

Who was Denis Cosgrove?

Denis E. Cosgrove was an Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. His father was a bank clerk and, ironically enough, as a child his school made him stop taking geography because they told his mother it was a girls subject and that he must do Greek and Latin instead to stay in the "A" stream. He went to school in Oxford and the University of Toronto. He was a cultural geographer, whose work focused upon the concepts of landscape and representations. He was a leading proponent of the 'new cultural geography' which encouraged a focus upon the complex interconnections between the many different aspects of landscapes and the world.

Denis was the second eldest of six children and was raised in a very catholic family. He was married twice and had two daughters and one son.