Volume 1, Spring 2022

Inaugural Editor Sarah Melotte welcomes you to Confluence Volume One - Inaugural Issue Just north of campus in the heart of downtown Denver, Cherry Creek and the South Platte River intersect, forming the confluence after which this journal is named. Like a river, the scholarly identity of our department is...

This paper intentionally emulates Yi-Fu Tuan’s style of writing and assumes, at times, that the reader is familiar with Tuan’s text, Space and Place, while also, assuredly, incorporating my own language and ideas. Some of the concepts presented here may seem abstract or philosophical as these thoughts coalesced and culminated...

Abstract Jaguars ( Panthera onca ) have been eradicated from 50% of their historical range across Mexico, Central America, and South America. The Brazilian Pantanal in west-central Brazil represents a stronghold of core habitat for the species and is an important site for conservation. Habitat in the Pantanal is threatened...

Introduction Recently, many ecologists have focused their efforts on studying how urbanization impacts bird populations (Lee et al., 2021; Marques et al., 2020; Torres et al., 2016; Waltert et al., 2004). Urbanization and linear infrastructure (roads and power lines) can negatively affect bird population densities and avian species richness (total...

Introduction Permeating the organic layer of the forest floor is a thick, interwoven matrix composed of fine white threads of fungal hyphae collectively known as mycelium. The majority of fungal biomass dwells underground in the form of mycelium, twisting and twining through an ocean of soil. Though most people associate...

Introduction The purpose of this Atlas is to answer the question, "How has COVID-19 impacted the spatial patterns of the Denver unhoused population in relation to public resources in the city core?" COVID-19 signified a crisis within a crisis for unhoused communities. Exploring the changing shelter situation, closures of public...

Kristy Gantzer with Art by Alyssa Tamborski Image Description The title reads "To be a refugee is..." Quotes from the Eritrean refugee are scattered throughout the art piece. They read: "to wonder: why you?" "To feel for your life," "to be grateful," "To wonder: why all the suffering and neglect?"...

Introduction Pueblo, Colorado has had a long and complex history with equity. It was developed on indigenous land for the purposes of ore-mining and railroad expansion, resulting in the enslavement and marginalization of indigenous peoples in addition to the exploitation of workers. As the second largest former steel manufacturing city...

Introduction In the late 19th century, Ida B. Wells, a black woman from the South, urged international powers to put American racism on the map (Alderman & Inwood, 2021). She used quantitative data to display lynching sites in her famous essay, “Lynching and the Excuse for It,” written in response...

Preface Yi-Fu Tuan gently circles space, carefully probing how humans experience the essence and liminality of place through their senses and bodies. At first thought, the idea of digital space and place – a world with no materiality – seems inconsistent with Tuan’s embodied, poetic approach. Technology eliminates any visceral...