Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Systematic consideration of the spatial and environmental bases of societies, in historical and cultural perspective. Breadth-Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course will investigate the major theoretical concepts and empirical contexts of social geography – one of the most dynamic and eclectic subfields in contemporary human geography. Largely the outcome of 1960s political radicalism and the “cultural turn” of the 1980s, social geography explores how spatial forces and structures reproduce social lives of difference and inequality. The course explores the following interrelated objects and scales of analysis: space and society; body; home; community; institutions; street; city; the rural; nation; and resort.

Participation: I encourage you to ask questions and make comments during class. Participation in university life, and the intellectual community we are all members of, means more than simply being in the room, but actively participating in discussion – both in person and online.  Every week, you are asked to not just come to class and tutorials having done the reading, but also prepared to engage with your classmates.  An important part of engaging is the exchange of ideas; this can however, be difficult in a class as large as ours and so part of your evaluation for this class will involve using the online learning opportunities afforded to us through Canvas. Throughout the semester it is expected that will you take part in meaningful exchanges through posting your thoughts or questions in response to the weekly readings, responding to other’s comments, and working to draw weekly reading into discussion with previous readings/ major class themes and everyday life on Canvas. At the end of the semester, students are asked to prepare a “portfolio” of their participation throughout the semester upon which their participation grades will be evaluated. Participation on-line does not replace participating in lecture and tutorial. 

Reading responses: The success and value of tutorials rely on students coming prepared to critically engage not just with assigned readings but also with each other. To this end, reading responses provide both a tool and an incentive to achieve this. All students are required to produce short reading responses (~2 pages for each week). As part of your weekly response, you are also required to come up with one discussion question per week. Reading summaries should critically focus on major arguments and themes in the respective readings and not merely repeat the argument. They should pay particular close attention to not just the argument or evidence in readings, but where relevant, also to whom authors are responding, or where connections to previous work exist. Reading summaries provide an excellent bridge for active discussion and they also build annotated bibliographies upon which students can draw for research papers as well as future study. Consideration will be given for clarity, rigor and creativity. Reading responses and discussion questions are due Wednesday by 10pm for discussion that week. Please submit reading responses through Canvas.      

Examinations: There are two exams for this course. The mid-term will consist of crafting In-class encyclopedia entries for key concepts in social geography. Students will be permitted to bring a one page, single-sided, HAND-WRITTEN, point-form only crib sheet into the mid-term exam. The crib sheet must be handed in with the exam. The Final Exam will be held during the Exam Period (see Course Schedule below) and will be cumulative. No notes are permitted for the final exam.  

“Doing Geography” Assignments: These assignments are geared to provide students an opportunity to connect lecture material to the “real-world” and, in essence, to be geographers. Each assignment will be discussed in lecture and detailed assignment instructions will be provided.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: