Course Description
Development of modern scientific thought and how it has shaped the discipline of geography, with themes such as how space and time are conceptualized, what is meant by the term "science," and epistemologies that have shaped the practice of geography and science. Required for all Ph.D. and M.A. graduate majors.
Athena Title
Seminar in Geographic Thought
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This seminar will address the development of modern scientific thought and how it has shaped the discipline of geography. Specifically, we will focus on themes such as how space and time have been conceptualized, what we mean by the term “science,” what are some of the different epistemologies (theories of knowledge) that have shaped the practice of geography and science, how we use “science” to make certain claims about the world, and how we decide that certain of these claims are more valid than others –or even if we can make such a claim. The history of scientific and geographic thought has often been presented as hagiography (in which scientific ideas are presented through an examination of the “great minds” of the past), as developmentalism (in which the ideas of one age are presented as following from those of earlier times in a linear fashion, linking the past with the present), or as teleology (in which scientific knowledge is thought to develop out of its own internal logic). This course, in contrast, will present a contextual approach to scientific and geographical ideas, by which is meant that it will examine how ideas developed at particular times in response to the changes and events taking place in the broader society. Implicitly, then, the course assumes an approach to science that sees knowledge not as an independent “thing” which, naturally, produces the “best” understanding of the world but, rather, as a cultural product which is always partial and contested. The production of knowledge through the doing of science is a social practice that is fraught with power relations and contradiction.
Topical Outline
Course Introduction An Overview of the Development of Geographic Thought (Part 1) Geography, Race, and Empire Thinking about Space Thinking about Time Debates over Numbers Recent Critical Approaches to Knowledge: Marxism, feminism and postmodernism Case Studies: Anthropocene Case Studies: TBA/TBD
Syllabus
Public CV