EES 709 GEOGRAPHIC THOUGHT AND THEORY
FALL 2014 TH 14:00  – 16:00

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Geography resources 

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COURSE SYLLABUS

Instructor:

Dr. Marianna Pavlovskaya

Office location:

HN 1003F (Hunter College) and GC TBA

Office hours:

Th 16-17 (at GC) and by appointment at Hunter College

Email:

mpavlovAThunter.cuny.edu (See Email rules)

BlackBoard login page:

http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu

Syllabus page:

http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~mpavlov/ and click on course link EES709 Geographic Thought and Theory

 


COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES

This course reviews the intellectual history and examines the diverse theoretical perspectives that constitute the field of the American human geography today. Given the breadth of the field, we will primarily focus on the key later developments including positivism to Marxism, feminism, and post-structuralism while paying attention to their many contemporary intersections. We will read foundational texts illustrating these perspectives and engage with recent articles and books. We will specifically discuss how the key geographic concepts such as place, space, and time are employed to understand the processes of class, race, gender and sexuality as well as uses of nature. Students will learn to differentiate between theoretical frameworks while reading the literature and theoretically locate their own research. Students will lead discussions, write weekly response papers, a midterm paper and a final paper, and present their final paper in class at the end of the semester.

BlackBoard: http://bb.hunter.cuny.edu (syllabus, course schedule, grades, discussion board, digital readings)

YOU MUST HAVE WORKING BB ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO ACCESS THE COURSE.


Texts

Important dates and wEEKLY topics

internet resources

Course requirements:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY


REQUIRED TEXTS

Creswell, Tim. 2013. Geographic thought: A critical introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Other weekly required readings will be available on BB.

We will also select 2-3 books to read during the semester based upon research interests of this group.

RECOMMENDED TEXTS

We will read chapters from some of the following (and other) books:

Overviews and anthologies

The following collections are useful references for this course and your future courses.

The Dictionary of Human Geography. 5th  edition. 2009. Wiley-Blackwell. Edited by Derek Gregory, R. J. Johnston, Geraldine Pratt, Michael Watts, and Sarah Whatmore. A handy source book of social theoretical terms as used by geographers.

Cloke, Paul, Phil Crang, Mark Goodwin, Joe Painter, and Chris Philo. 2004. Practising human geography. Sage publications.

Hubbord, Phil, Rob Kitchin, and Gill Valentine, eds. 2008. Key texts in human geography. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage Publications.

Holloway, S. L., S. P. Rice, and G. Valentine, eds. 2003. Key concepts in geography. London: Sage publications.

Anderson, Domosh, Pile, and Thrift, eds. 2003. Handbook of Cultural Geography, Sage Publications.

Sheppard, E. S., and T. J. Barnes, eds. 2002. A companion to economic geography. Blackwell.

Trevor J. Barnes, Jamie Peck, Eric Sheppard 2012 The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Economic Geography.

Nelson, L., and J. Seager, eds. 2005. A Companion to Feminist Geography. Blackwell.

Dear, M. J., and S. Flusty, eds. 2002. The spaces of post-modernity: Readings in human geography. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Geoffrey Martin and Preston James, All Possible Worlds. New York: Wiley,  3rd Edn. 2005

Agnew, J., D. N. Livingstone, and A. Rogers, eds. 2003. Human geography: An essential anthology. United Kingdom: Blackwell. Seminal writings in all areas of human geography.

Cloke, P., C. Philo, and D. Sadler. 1991. Approaching Human Geography An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Debates. New York & London: The Guilford Press. A good introduction to theory prior to feminism. Available on internet for $5.

Books:

David Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992.

Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2006. A Postcapitalist Politics. University Of Minnesota Press.

Gibson-Graham, J.K. 1996. The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy.

Anne Godlewska and Neil Smith, eds. Geography and Empire.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994.

Brown, Jacqueline N. 2005. Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wright, Melissa W. 2006. Disposable women and other myths of global capitalism. Routledge.

Hackworth, Jason R. 2006. The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism. Cornell University Press.

Mitchell, Don. 2003. The right to the city: Social justice and the fight for public space. Guilford Press.

Simone, Abdou Maliq. 2004. For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities. Duke University Press.

Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.University of California Press.

Wolff, R. D., and S. A. Resnick. 1987. Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical., 239-68. Baltimore/London: The John Hopkins University Press.

Brenner, N., and N. Theodore, eds. 2004. Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe. Blackwell Publishing.

Logan, J. R., and H. L. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: A Political Economy of Place. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Moss, Pamela, and Karen Falconer Al-Hindi, eds. 2008. Feminisms in geography: Rethinking space, place, and knowledges. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Pratt, G. 2004. Working feminism. Temple University Press.

Harvey, D. 2000. Spaces of hope. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. And many other books.

John Pickles, A History of Spaces.  New York: Routledge, 2004.

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COURSE REQUIREMENTS

The class meets once a week. Each session will begin with my short lecture to introduce a topic and/or presentation of the readings by the students assigned to lead the discussion. The rest of the class will be devoted to the discussion. Last week will include final paper presentations to the class.

 

If you miss a class, it is your responsibility to read the assigned literature and post the reaction paper.

Evaluation:

Reaction papers

15%

Class participation

25%

Two short midterm papers

20%

Final paper

35%

Reaction papers

Short reaction papers (300-500 words) to weekly readings. Please do not summarize but discuss what you found to be most important, engaging, or troubling. All papers must be proofread and clearly written. They should be posted to the discussion board on BB no later than 5pm Wednesday evening. They will be read not only by me but by all the students. The papers will be 1 point each (0 if you do not post it). Late submissions will earn lesser points. I will provide feedback to your papers in the first couple of weeks of the class. Please print these papers as well and hand them in, in addition to posting to BB.

Class participation

Class discussions are essential. You must read ALL the assigned readings and be ready to talk about them. Discussion leaders will briefly introduce the readings (5 min for all readings) and formulate two questions for discussion.

Midterm papers

Two midterm papers are due in the middle of the semester. These are short 5 page research papers that analyze class readings to date. Midterm paper questions and requirements are posted on BB.

Final paper

This paper is to help you to think about your research in relation to the many theoretical, philosophical, and epistemological perspectives in today’s geography. It will include the analysis of the class readings as well as some literature from your research area. Requirements for the final paper are posted on BB.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

CUNY and Hunter College regards acts of academic dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism, cheating on examinations, obtaining unfair advantage, and falsification of records and official documents) as serious offenses against the values of intellectual honesty. The College is committed to enforcing CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity and will pursue cases of academic dishonesty according to the Hunter College Academic Integrity Procedures. Plagiarism, dishonesty, or cheating in any portion of the work required for this course will be punished to the full extent allowed according to Hunter College regulations.

PLAGIARISM will not be tolerated and all university rules regarding its occurrences will be strictly followed.

Email rules:

Please email questions regarding the course. I usually respond by the next day (excluding weekends). Please specify EES709 in the subject line and sign your full name.

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INTERNET RESOURCES

All Graduate Center students have personal e-mail accounts, BlackBoard and internet access. The current class schedule with the assigned readings and discussion schedule will be on Black Board.

While libraries provide access to many on-line publications, only articles and books published by academic press should be used as a source for your papers. This means that they went through a review process and their academic quality is guaranteed.

Please contact EES CEO Prof. Cindi Katz (ckatzATgc.cuny.edu) and secretary Ms. Lina McClain (lmcclainATgc.cuny.edu) for help with BB and library access. 

List of selected geography journals

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Important dates for Fall 2014

Th, Aug 28

First class

Th 9/25

No class

The 11/27

No class – Thanksgiving break

Th 12/11

Last class

WEEKLY TOPICS

Please see BB for detailed Class Schedule. This schedule is subject to change.

Weeks

Dates

Topics

1

8/28

Introduction and logistics

2

9/4

Paradigm shifts in human geography. Early geographies.

3

9/11

Modern geography, Enlightenment, and Empire

4

9/18

Spatial science and post-positivist geography

5

10/2

Marxist geography then and now

6

10/9

Humanistic geography then and now.

1st midterm paper is due.

7

10/16

Feminist geography then and now

8

10/23

Post-modernism and post-structuralist geographies

9

10/30

Geospatial technologies and production of knowledge.

2st midterm paper is due.

10

11/6

Space, time, and scale: Relational geographies

11

11/13

Nature and society: Post-human geographies

12

11/20

Post-colonial geographies

13

12/4

Enacting other worlds

14

12/11

Final paper presentations

 

12/16

Final paper due