Aug. 17, 2018

Chloupek presents paper about historical patterns of street names

Dr. Brett Chloupek

Dr. Brett Chloupek, assistant professor of geography at Northwest Missouri State University, presented July 17 at the 17th International Conference of Historical Geographers at the University of Warsaw in Warsaw, Poland.

Chloupek presented “Spatial and Historical Patterns in Eastern European Street Names” during a session of talks, titled “Old and Historical Maps as a Tool: Challenges for Mind, Development of Form.”

His paper examined the evolution of street names in the city of Košice, Slovakia, through a series of maps from 1854 to the present. Chloupek researched archival documents and conducted personal interviews to examine the effects of politicized street names on public memory. The paper also drew a distinction between nationalist and socialist political regimes and their goals in commemorative street renaming. 

Additionally, Chloupek participated in a field trip to the Belarussian-Lithuanian border to visit sites at the eastern boundary of Western Christendom, including a 17th-century Baroque synagogue, a wooden mosque in a community of Lipka Tatars, and a Polish Orthodox monastery. 

Chloupek joined the Northwest faculty in 2013 and teaches coursework focused on the geography of Europe, Asia and Latin America as well as map investigation and political geography. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography and computer information systems from the University of Nebraska-Kearney, a master’s degree in geography and a certificate in geographic information system from Oklahoma State University, and his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Kansas.