USE OF CELLPHONES, LAPTOPS, TABLETS, AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES IS NOT PERMITTED IN THE CLASSROOM. Geography 470: History and Theory of Geography

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1 Geography 470: History and Theory of Geography Spring Tues. and Thurs. 5:00 6:20. Lucy Stone Hall, Room B-267 Instructor: Mazen Labban Office: B-248, Lucy Stone Hall Office Hours: By appointment ( me at least one day in advance) Course Description History and Theory of Geography is an advanced undergraduate course designed for students majoring in geography and other students with a strong interest in geography. The course is a critical inquiry into the historical and philosophical development of modern geographical thought and the academic discipline of geography. It examines the development of modern geography from its early beginnings with the expansion of European exploration and colonialism in the fifteenth century, focusing on key themes, debates and controversies that have shaped the academic discipline throughout its development, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, up to the present. We look at the development of geography in intellectual and social contexts, in relation to developments in the sciences, culture, geopolitics and the world economy. The purpose of the historical survey is to provide background for examining contemporary approaches to geographical questions, focusing especially on the relations between geographical knowledge and power. We conduct this critical exercise by examining geographers engagements with contemporary social theory and their endeavors to tease out the relations of power embedded in geographical concepts such as nature, space, place, landscape, etc. as well as in material spaces, environments, landscapes, etc. In the process we maintain focus on the tensions between geographic thought, the product of reflecting on the world and our position in it, and the discipline of geography, the enabling, institutionalization and containment of geographic thought. The ultimate aim of the course is to develop the critical conceptual and theoretical tools with which to think geographically about the planet and the world. The course does not assume any background or extensive knowledge of the subject, but the student s critical interest and willingness to engage in critical discussion. Course format All students are required to attend all sessions and to cover the assigned readings before class. The course comprises lectures and seminars. Classes will depend on every student s commitment to the course: preparedness before class, willingness to engage with the readings, raise questions and participate in class discussion. Open and critical debate is an essential part of a university education students are encouraged to converse and disagree with each other respectfully. In the second half of the semester students will be asked to prepare short presentations (ca. 10 minutes) and lead class discussion. Students are expected not only to summarize key arguments covered in the assigned readings but also, and more importantly, to present them in ways that elicit class discussion, so students are expected to be active in leading the discussion. USE OF CELLPHONES, LAPTOPS, TABLETS, AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES IS NOT PERMITTED IN THE CLASSROOM. 1

2 Reading material Required books: 1. Livingstone, David N The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 2. Cresswell, Tim Geographic Thought: A Critical Introduction. Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell. 3. Wainwright, Joel Geopiracy: Oaxaca, Militant Empiricism, and Geographical Thought. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. All three books are available at Rutgers University Bookstore. Also, copies will be placed on reserve at Kilmer Library. All other readings are available through the course website on Sakai, under Resources, in folders with the same titles as the respective class sessions organized in chronological order. Student evaluation 1) Midterm exam: 40%; 2) Final exam: 40%; 3) Performance 20% (including attendance, class presentation and participation in discussion). The final exam is on Wednesday, May 13, 4:00 7:00 PM. 2

3 Syllabus Tuesday Jan 20 Introduction to the course Thursday Jan 22 Thinking geographically in action Harvey, David Geographical knowledges/political powers. Proceedings of British Academy 122, pp Kropotkin, Peter What geography ought to be. The Nineteenth Century 18: Part I: Writing the history of geography Tuesday Jan 27 Telling the story of geography: history, theory, writing Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 1. Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 1. Thursday Jan 29 The contextualist approach to the history of geography Smith, Neil Academic war over the field of geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (2): Commentaries and Smith s response: Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78: Tuesday Feb 3 Women in the production of geographical knowledge Monk, Janice Women, gender and the histories of American geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94: Domosh, Mona Toward a feminist historiography of geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16 (1): pp Commentary by David Stoddart and Domosh s response: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16(4): Thursday Feb 5 Race and racism in (the history of) geography Kobayashi, Audrey The dialectic of race and the discipline of geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (6): Wilson Gilmore, Ruth Fatal couplings of power and difference: notes on racism and geography. The Professional Geographer 54 (1): Pulido, Laura Reflections on a white discipline. The Professional Geographer 54 (1): Bunge, William Racism in geography. The Crisis 72 (8): ,

4 Part II: The historical geography of geographical knowledge Tuesday Feb 10 The emergence of modern geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapters 2 3. Thursday Feb 12 Exploration, knowledge and empire Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 2. Tuesday Feb 17 Science, social utility and natural theology Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapters 3 4. Thursday Feb 19 Imperial science Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 5. Tuesday Feb 24 Environment, race and empire Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapters 6 7 Thursday Feb 26 History, culture and the particularity of place Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 8. Tuesday March 3 Areal differentiation: geography as chorology Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 9, pp Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 4. Barnes, T. J. and M. Farish Between regions: science, militarism, and American geography from world war to cold war. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96: Thursday March 5 The quantitative revolution: geography as spatial science Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition. Chapter 9, pp Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 5. Barnes, T. J. 2008: Geography s Underworld: the military-industrial complex, mathematical modelling, and the quantitative revolution. Geoforum 39: Tuesday March 10 MIDTERM EXAM Thursday March 12 Return of midterm exam and general discussion. 4

5 Tuesday March 17 Thursday March 19 No class. Spring recess March Part III: Contemporary geographical thought Tuesday March 24 Humanistic geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 6. Peet, Richard Existentialism, phenomenology, and humanistic geography. Chapter 2 of Modern Geographical Thought. Blackwell. Thursday March 26 Radical/marxist geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 7. Peet, Richard Radical geography, marxism and marxist geography. Chapter 3 of Modern Geographical Thought. Blackwell. Peet, Richard Radical Geography in the United States: A Personal History. Antipode 17 (2 3): Tuesday March 31 Feminist geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 8. Rose, Gillian The geographical imagination: knowledge and critique. Chapter 4 of Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge. Polity Press. McDowell, Linda Introduction: place and gender. Chapter 1 of Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. University of Minnesota Press. Thursday April 2 Postmodern geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 9. Gregory, Derek Chinatown part three? uncovering postmodern geographies. Chapter 4 of Geographical Imaginations. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Tuesday April 7 Poststructural geography Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapters Woodward, Keith and Jennifer Lea Geographies of Affect. In The SAGE Handbook of Social Geographies. Eds. Susan J. Smith, Rachel Pain, Sallie A. Marston, and John Paul Jones III. London: Sage. 5

6 Thursday April 9 More-than-human geographies Cresswell, Geographic Thought. Chapter 12. Wolch, Jennifer Anima urbis. Progress in Human Geography 26(6): Tuesday April 14 Thursday April 16 Blues epistemology Woods, Clyde What happens to a dream arrested? (Chapter 1); The blues tradition of explanation (Chapter 2). In Development arrested: the blues and plantation power in the Mississippi Delta. London: Verso. Demonic grounds: black, radical, feminist McKittrick, Katherine Geographic stories (Introduction); I lost an arm on my last trip home: black geographies (Chapter 1); The last place they thought of: black women s geographies (Chapter 2). In Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Tuesday April 21 Thursday April 23 Tuesday April 28 Schedule to be determined: Annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, April Geographic thought against the disciplining of geography Wainwright, Geopiracy. Thursday April 30 Commentary by Emily Gilbert: Human Geography 7 (3): Commentaries and Wainwright s response: Dialogues in Human Geography 4 (1):

GPHY 520- Seminar in Geographic Thought

The University of Montana Department of Geography GPHY 520- Seminar in Geographic Thought Fall Semester 2015 Monday 4:20 to 7:00 pm, Room 217, Old Journalism Instructor: Tom Sullivan Office: Room 307B,