GEOG 060 – D1:Geography/Race&Ethnic in US

Understanding the geography of race and ethnicity in the US is more than simply knowing why we can visit a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, a Polish deli in Chicago, or an Italian café in New York City. While it is important to understand the locations of different social groups, it is about more than simply making a list of people and places. The geography of race and ethnicity in the US means engaging with important questions about the links between space, place and power. Examining such questions helps us to understand the shape of the world we live in today, both by looking at the past and at the present. How do we conceive of Los Angeles, San Antonio, or San Francisco as American cities without first understanding the historical conflicts between the US and Mexico? Can we understand why most Italian-Americans left Mulberry Street, NYC for the majority-white suburbs without understanding the development of highways and postwar housing? How have the legacies of colonialism, slavery, and segregation left their imprints on the urban and rural landscapes that surround us today?

GEOG 151 – D2: Geography of India

The Indian subcontinent is a diverse, fascinating and culturally complex region, home to well over a billion people, multiple countries, and several major religions. This course will introduce you to the lay of the land, its people, and its politics. Using the frame of geopolitics, we will examine the relationship between space, place and power during several distinct periods in India’s history – including the classical, medieval, colonial, and modern era. Our focus will be on several important themes including colonialism and its legacies, the politics of religion, formation of the postcolonial nation-state and importance of development, and the significance of globalization and regional relationships for 21st century India.

GEOG 272 – Adv Top: Space, Power, Identity

The focus in this class is on various forms of mobility – as embodied experience, as geopolitical and historical phenomenon, as constitutive of identity within and across borders, and as a central facet of a globalized world. Using the key geographical concepts of “mobility”, “migration”, and “transnationalism” we will explore the various ways in which people, capital, labour, ideas, and culture are in movement across the globe. Our examination will range from transport to tourism, from theories of stillness to ideas of nomadism, from understandings of nationalism to contestations over identity and much more besides. Using examples from different regions and disciplines we the course will look at how landscapes of memory, tradition, belonging, home and unfamiliarity construct and challenge the cultural politics of place.