About the Interim Dean

Dr. Olaf Kuhlke became Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts in July 2009. Born and raised in Germany, he studied at the Phillips Universität Marburg (Germany) and Edmonton (Alberta), and completed his Diplom in Geography in 1997. He went on to attend Kent State University (Ohio) in 1997 to pursue his graduate education. He finished his Ph.D. in Geography in 2001. After a year out West, at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, he came to UMD in 2002. Since then, he has been in the geography department, and served as its chair from 2008 to 2009.

Dr. Kuhlke is a cultural geographer, and his research has focused on three specific areas:

First, his most recent work centers on geographies of religion, and more specifically the design and use of sacred space. He has been particularly intrigued by the spatial design of Masonic ritual and lodge buildings, an effort that resulted in the publication of his most recent book “Geographies of Freemasonry: Ritual, Lodge and City in Spatial Context”. In 2008, this book was honored with the Duane Anderson Excellence in Masonic Education Award by the Grand Lodge of Minnesota. He has also published non-geographic work that links the writings of Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard to the lessons of Masonic ritual work.

Dr. Kuhlke’s second area of interest is the spatial representation of national identity. Having grown up in Germany, and seeing it unite in 1989, he has always been fascinated by the many different challenges that his home country has faced. He has particularly examined the multiple ways in which German national identity has been recast and performed in the built environment of Berlin. These efforts ultimately resulted in the publication of Representing German Identity in the New Berlin Republic, published in 2004. Having spent several years of his graduate education in Canada, he’s also been enthralled by Canadian music and the ways in which it creates distinct spatial representations of national identity through lyrics, visual content and live performance. His particular passion for the music of the Rheostatics recently led him to write about this band in a book chapter entitled The Geography of Canadian Shield Rock: Locality, Nationality and Place Imagery in the Music of the Rheostatics. This work is part of a larger volume entitled Sound, Society and the Geography of Music, edited by Tom Bell (University of Tennessee) and Ola Johannson (University of Pittsburg-Johnstown). It will be available from Ashgate in December 2009.

In addition, he continues to be working on a third area of interest - international labor migration. With James A. Tyner (Kent State University), he is currently completing a book project entitled Moving Beyond Poverty: War, Disaster and Outmigration from Sri Lanka, 1977-2007. This work has also been contracted by Ashgate, and should appear in print some time in 2010.

When Dr. Kuhlke is not at work, you are likely to find him spending time with his wife Kari and his two kids, Kiel and Anja. He is also an avid runner and biker, and can occasionally be found on local archery ranges, improving his target shooting skills.