Geography

Upon completion of the course, students are able to …..

1.. understand and apply key concepts and ideas relating to food and nutrition from a social science/human geography approach.
2.. understand and analyze food issues from a relational perspective, in terms of both its geographical dimensions as well as systems thinking.
3.. understand food as a contested domain, and being able to identify and analyze major issues of social justice and sustainability relating to food.
4. reflect critically on social and geographical issues of food, and develop and communicate an informed argument about them (academic skills).
5. apply a set of specific analytical tools with respect to food and nutrition issues.   

 

This course introduces flows, networks, and diasporas as lenses from which to study international migration. The course mainly focuses on international migration from a global south perspective, but has a truly global scope that is particularly explored in analyses of the migration-development nexus. Likewise, the course discusses if and how climate change can be seen as a driver for migration and the role of migration in forming sustainable adaptation. The course focuses on one theme each week divided into two parts; first, conceptual presentations and discussions and second, critical readings of particular analyses/case studies. The exact content of the course may be influenced by students’ particular interests.

This course examines different ways of defining the economy and their implications for measuring, managing, and changing it. We will engage with a range of critical theoretical perspectives, some of which suggest broad interpretations of the economy that extends beyond corporations to consider domains such as unpaid household labor and different scales of government, as well as the role of social categories such as gender and race in shaping economies. As students build up a sophisticated conceptual understanding, they explore competing explanations for geographical differences in economic activities, wealth and development, as well as the relations between places.

Modern day Israel and Palestine, the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, covers an area that is six times smaller than the state of Pennsylvania, but has about the same population size (about 12.7 million people). In addition to the high density of population, this land is the heart of a religious, ethnic, national, and political conflict. This context makes spatial planning an immense challenge and is often used as a tool for achieving various political agendas. After presenting some brief background on the geography and the history of the land, this course focuses on topics including national and regional planning; the New Towns scheme; water planning issues; transportation planning; Jerusalem's geopolitical question; tourism development in historic cities such as Nazareth, Acre, and Bethlehem; the fence of separation, and affordable housing plans.