Syllabus

Geography 3: An Introduction to Human and Cultural Geographies
University of California, Los Angeles
Winter 2006

Course web page: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/06W/geog3-1/

This course is predicated on a seemingly banal set of questions: What is geography? What is culture? And why are they presented together?
 
Denis Cosgrove writes that “geography is everywhere!”  Yi Fu Tuan suggests that “geography is the study of how humans make the Earth their home.”  I have often opined that “culture, like pornography, is difficult to define but we know it when we see it.”   Geographers do, indeed, study the relationships between people and their environment.  Cultural geographers emphasize the ways in which humans construct complex worlds of being and belonging out of nature.  They study both the material concerns of demography and technology, as well as the ideal realms and practices that give meaningful and sentimental order to environments.  Topics in cultural geography include population and migration, urbanization, symbolic landscapes, the social partitioning of space and territory, the relationship of place and identity, and the cultural assessment of environmental risk.

The focus of this course will include an orientation to the key concepts and practices of cultural geography as well as a cultural geographic analysis of contemporary societies.  Whenever possible, emphasis will be given to experiential dimensions of geographical themes.  Students will study contemporary issues, such as world population growth, the expansion of cities, the evolution and preservation of landscapes, environmentalism, the geography of consumption, public versus private space, territoriality, the geographical consequences of electronic media, and cultural globalization.  These topics include diverse subjects, many of which are studied in other disciplines.  They become subjects of interest for the geographer when understood in relation to concerns of place, space, landscape, and environment.  For example, one of the defining characteristics of the modern city is the concentration of people with diverse cultural backgrounds living in close spatial proximity to one another.  The mixing of very different populations in a relatively small area creates a distinctive cultural geography of contemporary urban life.  The lectures will use the landscapes of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the everyday experiences of students to illustrate course themes and to demonstrate the usefulness of cultural geography for understanding twenty-first century life.  

Instructor:
            Dr. Mark Troy Burnett
            tburnett@ucla.edu
            Office Hours: Tuesday 10-12am, Bunche 1127c

Teaching Associates:
Peter Kabachnik: petkab@ucla.edu
Thomas Puleo: tpuleo@ucla.edu
Regan Maas: rmmaas@ucla.edu

Reading Material:
            Geography 3 Course Reader Available at Westwood Copy (1001 Gayley Ave.)

Exam Schedule

Midterm: Thursday, February 16
Final: Friday, March 24 (8-11am)

Student Evaluation (Total Points 500)

• Discussion Section (125points): Each student must be enrolled in and attend a discussion group that meets once each week.  The discussion section grade, to be determined by your TA, will be based on both your written work and your participation.  The goal of these sections is to clarify and discuss themes and concepts presented in lecture and the required weekly readings.  Each week you are required to write a 2 page discussion paper on the required readings. Discussion paper questions will be provided by the Teaching Associates.
• Field Assignment (50points): Doubtless, a course on geography inevitably involves going out into the world.  For this aspect of your grade you are required to visit 3 noteworthy sites in the Los Angeles region and write 2 pages on each of your chosen destinations.  Your write-up should include at least one geographic concept learned in class.
• Midterm examination (150points).  The format of the exam is identifications, short answers, and essays.
• Final Exam (175points): Cumulative—similar format as the midterm. 

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Itinerary

Week #1

Lecture Topics

            What is geography? What is culture?
            Why place matters
            Concepts and tools of spatial analysis

Readings

            Tuan: A View of Geography
            Cosgrove: Geography is Everywhere         

Week #2

Lecture Topics

            The development of geographic thought
            Concepts in cultural geography: from environmental determinism, to Carl Sauer,
            to postmodernism to the new cultural geography                       

Readings

            Salter: Cultural Geography as Discovery
            Smith and Foote: How the World Looks: Introduction
            Lewis and Wigen: The Myth of Continents

Week #3

Lecture Topics

            Demographics and world population
            Migration and the population debate

Readings

            PRB: Transitions in World Population
            Connelly and Kennedy: Must it be the Rest Against the West?
            Hardin: Lifeboat Ethics 

Week #4

Lecture Topics

            Concepts in urban geography
            World urbanization today
            Urban structure and form for the 20th  and 21st  Centuries
            Modernism, postmodernism and the city we inhabit

Readings

             Hudson: Aesthetic Ideology and Urban Design
             Domosh: The Symbolism of the Skyscraper
            The Economist: America’s New Utopias

Week #5

Lecture Topics

            A geography of Los Angeles
           
Readings

            Wachs: The Evolution of Transportation Policy in Los Angeles
            Curtis: Barrio Space and Place in Southeast Los Angeles
            DeLyser: Ramona Memories

Week #6

Lecture Topics    

Valentine’s day guest lecturer: Denis Cosgrove    

            “The geography of a kiss…”         

Readings

            No readings (Review for midterm)

Midterm I: Thursday, February 16th

Week #7

Lecture topics

            Nature/Culture/Society
            Urban nature and the nature of urbanism
            Los Angeles and the ecology of fear

Readings
            Cronon: The Trouble With Wilderness
            Price: Looking for Nature at the Mall
            Wolch et al.: Urban Nature and the Nature of Urbanism             

Week #8

Lecture topics

            The politics of territory and space
            Critical geopolitics

Readings          

            Brenner: Beyond State Centrism?
            Herbert: The Normative Ordering of Police Territoriality

Week #9

Lecture Topics

Mapping cultural identities
            Globalization and cultural change
            Interpreting places and landscapes                      

Readings

            Forest: West Hollywood as Symbol
            Anderson: Race, Place, and the Power of Definition
            Goss: The Magic of the Mall     

Week #10

Lecture Topics

            Tuanian Geography

Readings

            Sack: Geographical Self
            Entrikin: Geographer as Humanist

FINAL: Friday March 24, 8am-11am