Human geography

This thesis explores the landscape and beliefs of a nineteenth century utopian community, the Koreshan Unity, a group who settled the town of Estero, Florida. This research explains the alternative geography of the Koreshans, a worldview that claimed that we live on the inside of a hollow sphere. Their founder, Dr. Cyrus Teed, created this theory and made it the core of a social structure that also supported celibacy and socialism. I also describe the Koreshan Geodetic Expedition, a survey of the earth's curvature, and how it claimed to use scientific methods to prove the earth's concavity. The history, beliefs, and technology of this society are then examined against the landscape to elucidate issues of power and social control.

Cultural geographic theory uses dramatic language (place ballets , time-space routines, temporal rhythms , etc.) to describe how humans sense and dwell in places. Because the theory contemplates human behavior enacted upon a stage, it is applicable to theater studies. This thesis asserts that Hamlet's, Othello's, and Antony's treacherous lifeworlds undermine their spatiotemporal senses and initiate quests similar to those described by Anne Buttimer as searches "for order, predictability, and routine, as well as [...] for adventure and change" ("Grasping" 285). Hamlet's revenge plot is a pursuit of order and reclamation of his identity at Elsinore. Desdemona's murder is Othello's attempt to salvage his character, which he believed sullied by infidelity. Alexandria offers Antony a life opposite Rome's and sets him on a course of indecisiveness. These plays demonstrate that, at the point of cultural contact, routines are interrupted and identities destabilize. Tragically, the characters lose themselves in the turmoil.