Cultural Geography provides a lens for studying popular culture in all its guises, and can be a key tool for understanding the cleavages in society that are referred to as “culture wars”. Culture, as a human construction, is always dynamic, and always contested. In this course we will develop the approaches and determine the questions that help us to understand where culture comes from, where it’s going, and how it is determined, shaped, represented, and challenged, from place to place, people to people, time to time. Culture is power, culture is politics; how can we understand it, and influence it, as it unfolds around us? As we work through the course we are going to explore layers relating to place, space, landscape, identity, and power. What are these things/processes, how do they work?
In addition to course readings, we will draw upon the world “out there”; landscapes, buildings, magazines, literature, music, dance, film, television, discourse, and so on, to bring many cultural geographies into view. Your primary task is to read and participate in discussions, to respond in writing to the prompts that I will give you, and to be looking for illustrations of our themes in the world around you.
Application: Spring-Application-Inside-Out-Spring-GEOG-444-Cultural-Geography