Geography 232 - Cultural Geography

Why do people act in certain ways in certain places? Why does the urban landscape look the way it does? How do consumer goods link people's lives around the world? Those who have ever asked themselves any of these questions have already started thinking like cultural geographers. This course builds on these interests and offers an overview of themes, theories, and methods in cultural geography. Major course topics include: culture, power, place, landscape, ethnography, and social and environmental justice. We will learn how to identify cultural and spatial processes, consider how relations of power shape these processes, and explore how these relationships differentially impact people's lives. We will also examine how spaces and places are culturally, and unequally, made. Throughout the course, emphasis will be given to local and global interconnections and unequal power relations across space.