GEOG 372 - Topics in Human Geography

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

This seminar focuses on advanced debates in the socio- spatial organization of the modern world. The specific topic of inquiry varies from year to year. Students may repeat the course for credit if the topic changes. Previous seminar themes include the urban-industrial transition, the urban frontier, urban poverty, cities of the Americas, segregation in the city, global migration, and reading globalization.

Topic for 2014/15a: Capital Imperatives: Spatial Analysis of the Quandary of Capitalism. The financial crises and global restructuring have led to a resurgence in intellectual discussion about the fundamentals of global capitalism that has dominated development discourse for decades. Using selected influential writings by scholars such as David Harvey, and Giovanni Arrighi, this seminar explores recent theoretical analysis of the roles of space and territory in the accumulation of capital and the uneven expansion of the global capitalist system. The following topics are discussed: the rise of global capitalism; the development of U.S. economic hegemony and its crises; spatial manifestations of capital accumulation; challenges and insights from areas of the global periphery; and alternative economic systems. Ms. Zhou.

Topic for 2014/15b: Political Ecology. The relationship between environmental change and the livelihoods of peoples across the planet has long been a central concern of geographers. Political ecology is a particular, albeit multifaceted, approach to such matters. Broadly concerned with the dialectical ties between nature and society, it centers its analysis on social relations, power and difference; geographic unevenness; positionality, and issues of social justice. Course readings explore myriad themes that political ecologists focus on: resource exploitation, conflict and violence, race and gender, governmentality, rural development, and urban and industrial phenomena. In engaging such themes, the course interrogates vari- ous theoretical approaches ranging from actor network theory, to cultural studies, to Marxism and post-coloniality. Mr. Nevins.

Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

One 3-hour period.