Geography

Course Description

This course introduces students to the field of human geography. It aims to understand how places across the globe are interconnected and how these connections are shaped by the cultural, political, and economic practices of different people around the world. We will begin by considering the larger historical context of globalization and population change, with a focus on longstanding debates about migration and resource scarcity. Lectures and reading materials will also examine more recent concerns about climate change, sea-level rise, and the growing threat they pose for densely populated cities and coastal regions. The course explores these issues from a geographical perspective by focusing on key concepts in the discipline: namely, space, place, scale, and landscape. Students will learn how these concepts have been theorized and understood in different sub-fields of geography (e.g. political geography, urban geography, environmental geography, etc.) They will also learn to apply geographic theories in the context of real-world problems and see how the research of geographers can contribute to practical solutions at local, national, and international levels.

Learning Objectives

Students in this course will be able to achieve the following learning objectives:

• Define fundamental terms and key concepts in human geography.
• Locate the major settlement patterns, economic regions, and cultural divisions across the globe and explain how they developed geographically
• Identify demographic changes and how they alter economic and political development across the globe
• Apply concepts in geographical information science and technology to problems of human geography
• Identify major processes that create political and cultural difference and how they shape regional conflicts and environmental change
• Identify how cultural practices and belief systems shape landscapes
• Compare and contrast the processes of economic development in different regions.
• Compare and contrast the impact of globalization (economic, cultural and environmental) on the core, periphery and semi-periphery