Geography

This course examines issues of environment and uneven development through the historical geography of empire. The course educates students on: 1) interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to empire in the social sciences and humanities, 2) the study of empire and environment (especially natural resources) within the subfields of political geography, historical geography, development geography, and political ecology, and 3) the complex natures, spatialities, and identities produced in the wake of European empires in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Specific topics include the spatiality of sovereignty, racialized labor regimes (including slavery, coolies, and peasants), imperial modes of water and forest development, imperial systems of food and agriculture, state responses to disease and disaster, and the contradictory political geographies of settlement, incorporation, exploitation, and decolonization. The course concludes with a reflection on struggles to ‘decolonize’ imperial knowledge systems, political economies, and social relations in the contemporary era.

Students learn about the comparative dimensions of urbanization from the 18th to the early 20th century. Students explore the relationships between urbanization and the broader currents of economic, social, and cultural change. Students learn to compare and contrast urbanization at different places and times in both quantitative and qualitative terms; explain the relationships between social, cultural, and political processes; and explain the production of urban spaces and urban forms.

Through interrogating theories, strategies and trajectories of development in diverse contexts, the course examines the geography of the global political economy as it relates to development issues and the attendant cultural and political geographies of development.

The “environment” emerged as a new object of concern in the 1960s. Since then, and largely through the work of citizens, scientists, environmental justice movements, and NGOs, many different environmental problems have been raised - from chemical contamination to climate change, from oil spills to plastic-filled oceans. Despite growing awareness of these many forms of environmental degradation, the political and societal response has been far from adequate. How can we explain this? One starting point is to interrogate the contested history and development of environmental politics since the 1960s. This course introduces students to the emergence of environmental politics as a unique field of policy-making, scientific production, and conflict since the 1960s. It discusses key texts, writers and thinkers, whose work has been instrumental in shaping how we think about the environment, as well as how private, public, and civil society actors have responded to environmental problems in recent times.  

The course introduces fundamental concepts of Earth systems science with reference to its major subsystems: geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and anthroposphere. It illustrates how material and energy are cycled through the Earth system; describe the links between biotic and abiotic systems and their role in maintaining a habitable planet; applies an Earth systems approach to describe the phenomena of environmental and climate change; discriminates between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ and situates concerns about current climate change in a longer-term (geological) context; identifies how human activities modify Earth system function; and applies core concepts in geography and geoscience to real-world examples.

This course provides an introduction to the basic ideas and context of both urban and regional planning. Key planning systems, policy agendas and perspectives are critically assessed. Examples are drawn mainly from rapidly changing regions in Asia. Challenges addressed include infrastructure, land policy, housing, poverty, governance dilemmas and environmental problems. Planning in regions and cities is viewed in light of wider social, political and economic trends as well as the geographical context. Planning is placed into perspective relative to other forces that influence development patterns.