GEOG338

Description

This course will expose students to cutting-edge research across the range of geography and cognate disciplines, primarily via close engagement with a series of visiting speakers and their works. It will complement the other required courses for first year doctoral students in the department, Geography 368 (The Development of Western Geographic Thought) and Geography 318 (Explanation in Geography): where they provide historical and conceptual approaches to the development and content of the discipline, Geography 328 will have students engage with specific, grounded, and current examples of geographic research and the ongoing development of the discipline, with particular attention to full coverage of its breadth. The course, run in conjunction with the department's colloquium series, will include required attendance at each of the lectures by speakers in the series; readings of selected articles or other works by visiting scholars prior to their visits; and class sessions with visiting scholars to discuss the works read, the lecture, and current research in the visitors' areas of expertise. Students will write papers critically analyzing the talks and papers in terms of both content and presentation, and situating them within both the discipline and interdisciplinary fields of inquiry.The course is required for first-year doctoral students in geography, and open to masters students and senior undergraduate geography majors with permission of the instructor.