Rate My Professor Kenneth Madsen

Professor Madsen's research centers on political and cultural geography, borders and bordering processes, border barriers and walls, the effects of border law enforcement on Arizona border communities especially the Tohono O’odham Nation, indigenous sovereignty, immigration controls, legal mechanisms for border construction, indigenous-academic interactions, and geographic processes in film and fiction. Notable publications include "Institutionalising the Exception: Homeland Security Section 102(c) Waivers and the Construction of Border Barriers" in Geopolitics (2022), "Terminus Unleashed: Divine Antecedents of Contemporary Borders" in Journal of Borderlands Studies (2021), "Iconographic Landscapes of Borders and Immigration Controls" in The Routledge Companion to the American Landscape (2023), "The alignment of local borders" in Territory, Politics, Governance (2014), "Barriers of the US-Mexico border as landscapes of domestic political compromise" in cultural geographies (2011), and "Local impacts of the balloon effect of border law enforcement" in Geopolitics (2007). He has earned awards including the Service Award from Ohio State Newark (2015, pre-tenure category), Scholarly Accomplishment Award (2012, pre-tenure category), Multi-Cultural Affairs Faculty/Staff Awards (2010, 2009), and Common Good Awards from Tohono O’odham Community College (2008, 2007). Madsen teaches courses such as GEOG 3600: Space, Power and Political Geography, GEOG 2750: World Regional Geography, and participates in the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project, delivering Inside-Out courses. He serves on graduate committees in Geography and is a Board of Directors member for the Association for Borderlands Studies (2024-2027).