Geography

The course presents an overview of the historical geography of Ireland from the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Mesolithic through to c.1840 A.D. Throughout the course developments in Ireland are set within appropriate comparative and theoretical contexts. The principal topics explored are settlement, land use and agriculture, the changing environment (including human impacts), patterns of cultural variation and interaction, and how these have come together to forge changing landscapes and regions.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor and the department. Students are advised to talk to the Professor directly before applying for departmental approval. The course focuses on the urban transformation which took place in Europe in the nineteenth century and the new rapport between the city and the surrounding territory and their conservation. In particular, students are expected to: master theories and methods for reading and planning the historic city and cultural landscapes; interpret the preservation of the historic city as an asset for cultural and economic development; interpret the historic city and landscape as context and object of interest for cultural institutions. Topics covered: the historic city as an urban planning issue; methods of identification and assessment of cultural values to be protected and enhanced; reading and planning the historic city; key experiences in Italy ‘50s – ‘70s, the foundation of an urban planning practice; preserving the historic city, regulatory frameworks for urban conservation in UK, France, and Italy; the World Heritage Convention (1972) and the UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape approach (2011); planning policies and conservation interventions for the World Heritage cities; the role of cultural activities in historic cities.

Subsequent to the introductory lecture, this course is divided into three sections. The first main section provides an historical and political overview of the "war on terror" in relation to thinking about other types of wars. It considers how the prosecution of the war on terror has come to shape not only military, but also legal and governmental discourse and practice in the post 9/11 era. The second section invites students to consider ideas and practices of security as a central feature of this. It considers the rise of private military contracting, immigration, humanitarianism, urban geopolitics, and the overlap between health and security concerns. The third section focuses on the political-economic underpinnings of many of these developments and challenges students to think of conflict as an embedded social phenomenon: as much a part of contemporary discourses on the economy as it is something with merely economic implications. 

The course explores the relationships between urbanization and broader social, economic, political, and environmental transformations.  Exploration in this course is employed both as a tactic to thematically investigate contemporary cities, and as an opportunity to re-imagine what we might understand to be 'the city' and 'the urban' using recent theoretical approaches. While the course addressed a wide-range of cities across the global north and south, London is used throughout as a pivotal case through which to ground the thematic and theoretical explorations.