Geography

This course examines the core hydrological and climatic processes that cause change within the environment, particularly the role of water. It covers why climate varies spatially, and why vegetation has such an important influence on the availability and timing of moisture and stream flow. It will also examine how hydrological and climatic systems respond to human interaction and environmental change. The emphasis will be on providing the skills necessary to interpret the processes controlling the spatial and temporal variability in climate and water availability.

This course introduces students to selected ways in which human geographers seek to understand cities. It explores the relationship between people and place. Primarily engaging with London, students consider how the city has been shaped over time by its people and how, in turn the city experience has shaped and continues to shape the lives of those who live there. Students consider how the city is described, imagined, and planned through official discourses, and how people create a sense of place, of self, and of others in the city. In the fall semester, students explore the relationship between planning, architecture, design, and people’s identities. In the spring semester, students explore the relationship between infrastructure and people. Throughout students consider how human geographers engage with the lived experience of the city through the lens of, for example, ethnicity, class, and sexual identity.

In the face of threats of the seventh mass extinction and climate collapse, a planetary emergency has been declared by scientific and intergovernmental bodies. People across global civil society are coming together to respond. This course provides an interdisciplinary perspective on interacting dimensions of key socio-environmental challenges of the 21st century, and responses to them. Considering crises in land, food, water, and biodiversity, students critically analyze the intersections between systems of power and complex environmental processes, and the diverse ways in which people relate to nature and society. 

This course examines contemporary geospatial technologies such as web-mapping, GPS and tracking devices (such as your phone), Remote Sensing and GIS. It covers key concepts and principles behind these tools and their use, along with practical experiences through laboratories. Critical and theoretical perspectives on the tools, their use, and their social impacts will be discussed.

This course focuses on the substantive role that China plays in the Global South where its preponderance of material power and putative developing country status confers upon it a dominant position in bilateral and regional political economies.  China's economic position, coupled to an astute use of finances flowing from its mercantilist policies, has enabled it to become the leading trading partner and a significant investor in the developing world.  Moreover, the Global South is increasingly figuring in Beijing's expanding security interests and soft power provisions.  Interpretations embedded in prevailing academic discourses like socialisation, threat and peaceful rise take on new meaning when studied through the lens of ties with developing countries.  Understanding how dynamics in this relationship are impacting upon a host of global and contemporary issues (BRICs, multilateralism, peacekeeping, the environment) is crucial to the shape of the 21st century.

In this course, students gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of contemporary change in the UK. Key themes to be addressed in seminar discussion include neo-liberalism, the North-South divide, culture-led urban regeneration, urban heritage and identity, migration, and urban health. 

This course examines environmental change from a historical geography perspective. Approaches to investigating and understanding the transformation of environments are explored, and processes driving creation of different types of landscapes including heritage places are considered. 

This course offers a study of urban planning and land use planning. It discusses instruments of intervention in land use policy and land management, as well as the main lines of land use planning and urban development in Catalonia and Spain.
 

This course examines the historical evolution of Singapore as a global city-state against the contexts of global changes and developments from the 14th to the 21st century. The course is open to all students interested in Singapore studies.

This political geography course covers the following five themes: space and power; the hegemonic political space of modernity-- state and nation; the space of interstate disorder-- geopolitics; the space of legitimacy-- electoral geography; place and social movements.