Revised syllabus (917/07)
Introduction to Human
Geography
GEOG 600 Fall2007
Instructor: Dr. Martha Geores,
mgeores@umd.edu; 54064
Monday 1-3:30, Room 1124
Lefrak
Office hours M 11-12, T
11:30-12:30 and by appointment
Required Texts:
Agnew, Human Geography: an
Essential Anthology Blackwell publisher
Unwin, The Place of
Geography, Longman/John Wiley
Nellis, Presidential
Musings
Aitken and Valentine, Approaches
to human geography
Recommended Texts:
Hoggart, Researching Human
Geography
Paulson, Political ecology
across spaces, scales, Rutgers University Press.
Cloke, Envisioning Human
Geographies,
AAAS, AAAS Atlas of
population & environment,
Jared Diamond, Guns, germs
and steel and Collapse
Goals of the course
GEOG 600 is the first segment
of the graduate introduction to Geography as a field of study. The second
segment is the Introduction to Physical Geography and will be taught by Dr.
Townshend in the spring semester. This sequence is the comprehensive exam for
both the MA and the PhD students.
Therefore, we expect you to give these courses a high level of effort
and to emerge from the sequence as a certified geographer. You should know the history and philosophy of
the discipline and have a working knowledge of human and physical sub
disciplines and their integration.
Rules of the road
Attendance is expected. Class will start at 1, be there. You are expected to have read the assigned material and be ready to discuss it. Common rules of courtesy apply to class time. Open discussions will occur and all opinions will be respected and probably challenged – that’s what grad school is all about.
Grades will be assigned for class participation including both group presentations*(450 points) and discussion of the issues, weekly short papers** (200 points), a journal of your “encounters with human geography”(100 points), three 5-7 page essays on assigned topics,***(175 points a piece) and an in-class, closed book final exam (600 points). Everyone is expected to participate during class discussions; I will moderate the discussions, not allowing anyone to either dominate or fail to participate. You are not competing against each other for grades. Help each other; this course requires a lot of work.
* Each week groups will be responsible for presentation and
discussion of the readings. (
**Each week I will give you a question to ponder while you are doing the readings. After you do the readings you will write about the question in a two page essay. There are three groups in the class, Questions will be assigned according to group, so be sure that you answer your group’s question. Sometimes I will ask you to find other articles on the subject to supplement the readings, most times you will just write about the assigned readings. Please follow the writing style used in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
***The essays cover central themes in the course and will be due after we have finished the unit on that topic.
You must complete all of the work in order to get a grade (it’s a university rule). Assignments are due at the beginning class time. Assignments will lose half a letter grade each day they are late. Grades on the weekly paper are from 1-20, and a late paper loses a point per day it is late. If you consistently (3 times) fail to complete the assignments on time, or you miss 3 classes you will be asked to withdraw from the course, or you will receive a failing grade.
Accommodations
If you have any special needs relating to your performance in the course, please let me know as early in the semester as possible. I will accommodate you. Religious holidays and campus obligations will be respected.
Honor Pledge
On each assignment you must include and sign the honor pledge – “I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance on this assignment”. This is a university requirement. I expect you to know how to write papers without plagiarizing anyone’s work.
Syllabus
Each class will have 3 parts: presentation of the readings, applying the readings and an introduction to the next section.
Introduction
Sept. 10
Outline of the course and requirements
What do geographers say geography is?
Core statement from the faculty at UMD
Razing
The History and
Philosophy of Geography
Sept 17.Unwin, Chapter 3, “Geography and Society”
_____ Chapter 4, parts 4.1 and 4.2
Agnew, Chapter 1, “A Plea for the History of Geography” by John K. Wright
_____ Chapter 2 Paradigms and Revolution or Evolution, R.J.Johnston
_____ Chapter 5. “On the history and present condition of geography”, David Harvey
______Chapter 7 “What Geography Ought to Be” Peter
Kropotkin
_____Chapter 9.
“The Study of Geography” Frank Boas
Question: 1.What aspect of the history of geography did you find important for today”
Sept 24 Geography as an academic discipline
Aitken – Chapters 13,14,15
Unwin, Chapter 1 “Geography: the social construction of a
discipline” and the remainder of Chapter 4.
Agnew, Chapter 4, “Institutionalization of Geography and
Strategies of Change”, Capel
___Chapter 3, “Musing on
Aitken chapters16,17,18
Nellis et als 2004
“Creating and maintaining strong and healthy departments”, chapter 5 in Presidential
Musings, pp77-95. and ‘Disciplinary
Directions” chapter 9, 153-186.
The Harvard Story
AIKEN Chapters 19,30,21
Smith, Neil. 1987. “Academic War over the Field of Geography”: The Elimination of Geography at Harvard, 1947-1951” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77(2): 155-172.
Augelli, John and Donald Patton. 1988. “On “Academic War of the Field of Geography” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78(1): 145-147.
Cohen, Saul. 1988.”Reflections on the Elimination of Geography at Harvard, 1947-51” Annals of the Association of American Geographers78(1) 148-151.
Raisz, Erwin.1952. “Geography at Harvard” Science (Apr 11, 1952) 115(2989)” 405-406.
Cutter, Susan. 2004 “Bring Geography back to Harvard and Yale and…: in Nellis, p. 225-227.
Nellis, chapter 5.
Creating and maintaining strong and healthy departments.
Question: 1. What does it mean to be a unified discipline?
2. When is conflict with in the discipline productive?
3. What does conflict within the discipline look like to people outside the discipline?
October 1 Geography
as a Social Science
Aitken chapter 1
Unwin, Chapter 2 “The place
of theory”
Gallopin, Funtowicz, O’Connor
and Ravetz. 2001. Science for the twenty-first century: from social contract to
the scientific core” ISSJ (Unesco)168:219-229.
Aitken, chapter 2.29
Agnew, Chapter 6, “Situated
Knowledges” Donna Haraway
______Chapter 10. ‘Meaning
and Aim of Human Geography’, Paul Vidal de la Blache
_______ Chapter 38,
“Reassertations: Toward a Spatialized
Ontology” Soja
Aitken chapter 22
Baxter,
Jamie and John Eyles. 1996. “Evaluating Qualitative Research in Social
Geography: Establishing ‘rigour’ in Interview Analysis” Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers New Series 22:505-525.
Massey, Doreen. 1999.
“Space-time, ‘Science’ and the Relationship between Physical and Human
Geography” Transactions of the
Question: 1.What are the ontologies of human geography?
2. What are the
epistemologies of human geography?
3. Does physical geography have multiple
ontologies and epistemologies?
OCTOBER 8. First
paper – Discuss the ontology and epistemology of Human Geography no
readings due
Oct. 15 The Relationship between human and physical
geography
Environmental Determinism
–IT’S BACK
The old kind:
_______. 1943. “The Geography
of Human Productivity” Annals of the Association of American Geographers
33(1): 1-31.
The new kind
Blaut, James 1999.
“Environmentalism and Eurocentrism” Geographical Review 89(3): 391-408.
Frenkel, Stephen. 1996.
“Jungle Stories: North American Representations of Tropical
Bassin, Mark. 1996. “Nature,
Geopolitics and Marxism: Ecological Contestations in
Pulido, Laura. 2000.
“Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in
Kirkpatrick, Jamie. 2000.
“The Political Ecology of Biogeography” Journal of Biogeography 27(1):
45-48.
Question – 1.Why was
environmental determinism shoved into the closet?
2. What did it mean
historically?
3. Is the new environmental
determinism dangerous?
Aitken, 8
Agnew 13, “Traces on the Rhodian Shore”,
Clarence Glacken
Guelke, Leonard. 1997.
“The Relations between Geography and History Reconsidered” History and Theory
36(2): 216-234.
Aiken 28
______14 “Influences of Geographic Environment” Ellen
Semple
_______17, “The Morphology of the Landscape” Carl
Sauer
Aitken 23
_______16 Geography, Marx and
the Concept of Nature” Neil Smith and Phil O’Keefe
_____19 Marxism, Culture and
the duplicity of nature” Stephen Daniels
Question –1. How is nature
political?
2. Is description of the landscape human geography?
3. What does the historic view add to our understanding
of the nature of landscape?
October 29, no new readings
October 29 Second paper: Research a geographer whose work
spans human and physical systems. What
did the geographer study, how did she study it, and how credible were her
findings.
Nov.5 Scale
Aitken 4
Sidorov, Dimitri, 2000.
“National Monumentalization and the Politics of Scale: The Resurrection of the
Cathedral of Christ the Savior in
Aitken7
Gezon and Paulson, 2005.
Place, Power, Difference: Multiscale Research at the Dawn of the Twenty-first
Century, in Political Ecology across Spaces, Scales, and Social Groups,
pp. 1-17.
Herod, Andrew and Melissa
Wright. 2002. “Introduction: Theorizing Scale” in Geographies of Power,
Placing Scale.
Aitkin, 24, 26, 11, 3, 4
Question: 1. Scale explains
everything.
2. Scale is artificial and is
used to promote political positions.
3. Scale is socially constructed.
Regions
November 12 Old regional geography:
Agnew Chapter 22. “Region,
Environment, Heredity, and Consciousness” Herbertson.
_______Chapter 23 “Human
Regions” Fleure
_______Chapter 24 “The Character of Regional
Geography” Hartshorne
_______Chapter 32 “ The territorial growth of
states” Ratzel
Agnew Chapter 35
“Exceptionalism in Geography: a Methodological Examination”, Shaefer.
Unwin, Chapter 5. “From
region to process: the emergence of geography as an empirical-analytic science.
Aitken 8,9
Questions: 1. What was the
nature of the argument between Hartshorne and Shaefer?
2. Why was Shaefer right?
3 Why was Hartshorne right?
November 19 New Regional
Geography.
Aitken 25
Holmen, Hans. 1995. “What’s
New and What’s Regional in the ‘New Regional Geography’? Geografiska
Annaler, Series B, Human Geography 77(1):47-63.
Aikten12
Deas, Iain and Kevin Ward. 2000. “From the ‘new
localism’ to the ‘new regionalism’? The
implications of development agencies for city-regional relations” Political
Geography 19(2000): 273-292.
Regionalism – Anne Gilbert
– cite to be supplied
Assignment: Find and discuss a
recent article that uses: 1. political boundaries as regions
2. Conflict over the meaning
of regions
3. Regions as a concept of
convenience
How do human geographers do research?
Nov. 26
Unwin Chapter 6, Geography
and historical-hermeneutic science: the quest for understanding.
Agnew, Chapter 7 Critical science and society: the
geographer’s interest
Agnew 11, “Geography without
human agency” David Ley
Aiken 3, 8,4,6
Question: all groups. Pick a theoretical framework from chapter 6
or 7 of Unwin. Find a study that used the framework and discuss how the framework
was used.
Dec 3 The role of social theory in human geography
Aitken, 6
Gregory, D. 1996.
´Commitments: The Work of Theory in Human Geography’ Economic Geography
72(1):73-80.
Agnew, chapter 12 “Areal Differentiation and Post-modern Human
Geography” Derek Gregory
Staeheli, Lynn and Patricia
Martin. 2000. “Spaces for Feminism in Geography” Annals of the
Fels, Dick. 2001. “Three
Spaces of Social Theory: Towards a Political Geography of Knowledge. Canadian
Journal of Sociology 26 (1):31-56.
Unwin Chapter 8.
Aiken 9, 10, 27
Question: Is post-modernism a
theory?
December 10 no readings
Paper #3 The
social production of space is an underlying concept in much of modern
research. Discuss why you think that is
the case.
EXAM TBA – the university’s problem, not mine.