2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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GEOG 196 - Development and Environment in Latin America: Difficult Questions, Creative Responses
This first-year intensive, run as a seminar, will ask students to consider deeply difficult questions about the relationships between economic development, human rights, cultural difference and the environment. We address these dilemmas for the case of Latin America, and will interact with professionals and activists primarily from Latin America who work on these issues every day and seek to develop creative responses. The course will focus on the complex relationships among natural resource extraction, large-scale agriculture, large-scale infrastructure, community-based development, and human and indigenous peoples’ rights. As such, the seminar also introduces students to on-going research being conducted at Clark University and in which they may later wish to become involved.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-anually
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GEOG 201 - Taste, Culture, Power: Historical Geographies of Food
How does our modern penchant for caffeine, sweets, fresh produce, and meat relate to imperialism and inequality? Across time and space, humans have ingested plants, animals, and substances for sustenance, nourishment, pleasure, medicine, and spirituality. Every food and meal we consume represents a confluence of tastes, cultures, and powers that can be traced back to the interconnected histories and geographies of slavery, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, militarism, and capitalism. This seminar is intended to help students develop foundational knowledge in critical agro-food studies. Through readings, written assignments, discussions, and group projects, students will examine big questions, such as the colonial roots of children’s sweet tooth; the socio-ecological “hoofprint” of animal-based diets; the geopolitical origins of the calorie; gender and racial ideologies undergirding the invention of “Betty Crocker” and “Aunt Jemima”; and the future possibilities of food.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP, D&I
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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GEOG 205 - Introduction to Hydrology
Overview of what governs the hydrological cycle’s major components of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, surface water, and groundwater. Core principles of physical hydrology will be introduced including rainfall-runoff processes, surface and subsurface storage and flows, and land-atmosphere exchange. Students will also learn about human influences on the water cycle, and consider management of water resources at field to watershed scales. Upon completion of this course, students will:
- Understand the essential elements of hydrological processes and how these govern the distribution of water in the earth system.
- Be able to solve the surface water balance and analyze its controls in different environments.
- Have the basic skills needed to explore water resource issues, such as quantitative understanding of the likelihood of extreme rainfall and flooding events, flow directions and rates in surface and ground waters, or land use/land cover effects on hydrological processes.
- Have new appreciation for fundamental tools and terms used in the field of hydrology including mass balance, steady-state, flux-gradient relations, continuity, dimensional analysis, and probability.
RECOMMEND GEOG 104 or GEOG 102 . A background in one or more of the following courses would also be helpful: physics (PHYS 110 /PHYS 111 ), calculus (MATH 120 /MATH 121 ), or statistics (GEOG 110 ). Three of the lab sessions will require extended hours.
Prerequisites:
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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GEOG 216 - Field Methods for Environmental Science
The collection and analysis of field data is central to research and other work in the environmental sciences. In this field-based course students learn key methods used in environmental science, especially forest ecology. Students also work with the scientific method and learn to formulate and test hypotheses. Most class meetings involve field trips to nearby forest ecosystems to collect field data. Occasional class meetings are in the classroom to discuss methodological approaches.
Prerequisites: The successful completion of or concurrent enrollment in GEOG 116 or consent of the instructor is a prerequisite for GEOG 216.
Course Designation/Attribute: SP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 220 - Property and the Global Environment
Property relations are among the most powerful and pervasive institutions in human societies. Fundamental rules governing and legitimating who can do what, and where, shape and reveal interactions between human societies and physical environments. This course explores these dynamics with a particular focus on their implications for environmental politics and regulation. It addresses debates over common property; the benefits and dangers of privatization of environmental goods and services; distinctions between formal and informal property rights; the development of zoning and other regulation of private property; and contemporary debates over novel forms of property rights in nature (e.g., intellectual property rights, tradeable pollution permits, etc.), as well as relationships among trade, property rights, and environmental quality. At least 6 credits of prior coursework in geography or another relevant discipline (e.g., political science, economics, history, or ID) or permission of the instructor subsequent to discussion regarding the student’s level of preparation is required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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GEOG 222 - Why Global Warming Matters
Climate change (a.k.a. “global warming”) is the single greatest problem facing the planet today. Or is it? In this course students will peel away the rhetoric surrounding global climate change, so that they may be able to understand why this issue matters not only to international policy makers but also to individuals and their daily lives. Topics for exploration will focus on the causes and consequences of climate change and justification (and options) for action. The breadth of areas the climate-change issue intersects - including but not limited to ecology, politics, economy, ethics - suggests that global warming is a crucial integrating theme for the discipline of geography and, more importantly, the intellectual foundation of a well-rounded student. Students will engage in quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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GEOG 224 - Economy and Environment
Environmental problems are largely the result of economic developments and human settlement patterns. This course involves the examination of different types of economies, various institutional forms and constraints, and cultural features that have environmental implications. Of particular importance are the types of futures that people envision, and the sorts of economic features that must be developed to achieve desirable (or sustainable) futures. Ecological modernization, political and social ecologies, voluntary simplicity, industrial ecology, community-based entrepreneurial economies, “other than capitalist” economies, and other discourses/practices will be examined for their economic and environmental implications. We will also consider global production networks and fair trade, third party certification, and corporate social responsibility. A practical project will be undertaken by each student. Food production and consumption will be a principal focus of the course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 225 - Environmental Politics
This course examines the development of environmental governance, with a primary focus on the United States. It explores how we conceive of the environment, multiple approaches to environmental governance and protection, and the many dimensions of environmental politics. It reviews both the history of environmental movements and regulation, and contemporary issues and debates in environmental governance, with particular attention to issues of scale, justice, institutional forms, and the effects of social movements. Each iteration of the course will focus on a specific example, after building a common historical and analytical foundation (e.g., climate change, genetically modified organisms, pollution control, conservation of biodiversity, etc.).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 232 - Landscape Ecology
Considers the relationships between spatial patterns in landscape structure (physical, biological and cultural) and ecological processes. Role of ecosystem pattern in mass and energy transfers, disturbance regimes, species’ persistence, applications of remote sensing and GIS for landscape characterization and modeling are examined. Prerequisite: GEOG 190 - Introduction to Geographic Information Science . GEOG 116 - Forest Ecology is strongly recommended.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 237 - Feminism, Nature and Culture
The purpose of this course is to expose students to major currents of contemporary social theory that have developed around “nature” and “woman” or nature and gender. We will explore a number of important contemporary topics including: biotechnology and “life,” food and identity, the body/science/fashion, human and nonhuman animal relations, and the manner in which conceptualizations of nature and of women (or gender roles) mutually constitute and reinforce one another. Our principal goals are to analyze and critique the normative idea of what is “nature” or what is “natural” as it pertains to gender, environmental processes, other life forms, and human social and economic existence in general. Because feminists have been instrumental in leading much of this analysis and critique, we lean heavily on feminist theories. We will explore these ideas through science fiction, magical realism, cartoons, movies, other fiction, social histories and biographies. By the end of the semester, students should be adept at decoding representations of nature and gender in the popular media as well as in academic scholarship. Students should also have a reasonable understanding of the development of and debates surrounding biotechnology and gender, identity and gender, and ecofeminist thought.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 240 - Race and Urban Space
This course is about the ways in which race and racial difference have been central to the production of cities and everyday life in urban contexts. Ultimately, our goal is to gain a broader understanding of the relationship between social difference, space and power. Across our course readings there is a particular focus on Black urban life. However, given that race is inextricably linked to other categories of difference - gender, sexuality, class-our course attends to how people who inhabit multiple axes of difference both experience life in the city and produce new definitions of urbanity.
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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GEOG 242 - Everyday Urban Life (Urban Ethnography Lab)
This course is about exploring everyday urban life through the use of ethnographic methods. The course brings together ethnographic fieldwork with readings in critical ethnography and urban studies. In this course, the city serves as a laboratory for understanding matters of space, place and power. Alongside engaging critical literature, and fieldwork, students will gain experience with a range of tools and methods from creating ethnographic toolkits and interviewing, to mapping and visual ethnography, to coding and analysis. The course invites participants to think critically, both about the role of ethnography in creating urban fictions, and also about the possibilities of using ethnography for engaging questions about difference and power, for mapping and imagining a diversity of urban life, for ethically approaching communities and collaborators, and for creating just urban futures. The primary course objectives are (1) to familiarize students with ethnographic methods, (2) to orient students towards employing ethnography in the study of space and place, and (3) to engage critiques of and critical approaches to using ethnography to examine urban life. Satisfies Geography major skills requirement.
Prerequisites: Any one of the following: GEOG 020 , GEOG 141 , GEOG 240 , GEOG 248 , GEOG 252 , or GEOG 258
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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GEOG 245 - Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere
The Earth’s cryosphere (frozen planet) plays a critical role in shaping the world in which we live. The great ice sheets of the past shaped the surface of the continents; changes in snow cover and sea ice extent are amplifying global warming; rapid thinning of glaciers and ice sheets is accelerating global sea level rise; and abrupt snow melt is one of the primary causes of catastrophic flooding. Understanding how and why the cryosphere experiences such rapid changes is of ever increasing societal importance. Changes in the cryosphere occur on massive scales and in hostile environments, making them highly suited for analysis using remote sensing.
In this class students will learn about the physical characteristics of the cryosphere’s four main components; glaciers, sea ice, snow and permafrost and the role that each component plays in modulating the Earth’s climate system. Students will build upon previous remote sensing knowledge and learn about visible, Lidar, radar and microwave satellite sensors and apply this knowledge to measure changes in cryosphere characteristics (e.g. area, volume, mass, reflectance, melt, and velocity). Students will be required to complete a self-directed and novel group research project that they will present to the class the end of the term. The course will also focus on student skill development with several frequent collaborative projects conducting remote sensing analysis using Matlab.
Prerequisites: GEOG 293 or equivalent background, some programming knowledge (such as C, Python, R, Matlab) is beneficial but not required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
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GEOG 247 - Intermediate Quantitative Methods in Geography
Continues development begun in GEOG 110 of computer-based methods in geographical analysis. Focuses on bivariate and multivariate regression, discriminant analysis, factor analysis, log-linear models and analysis of spatial and temporal data. Includes lab work with PCs, spreadsheets and SPSS-X statistical software package. Prerequisite: GEOG 110 . Meets skill requirement for geography majors and graduate students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 248 - Social Justice and the City
Cities today face unprecedented challenges. Migration, rapid urbanization, growing inequality, authoritarian governments, racial tensions, terrorism, climate change, and the list goes on. This course examines the concept of social justice in light of contemporary philosophical debates and explores its various relations to the city and urban development, using a geographical perspective. After engaging various dialogues on social justice, the course turns its attention to the ‘urban question’. It asks what is distinctive about the issue of social justice in an urban context and whether we need a more geographically-informed viewpoint from with to deploy our positions on social justice. In the final section of the course, various urban issues and problems are explored using developed understandings of social justice.
Course Designation/Attribute: VP, DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 252 - Urban Design Research Lab
At present, over half the world’s population live in cities. Yet we have no stable idea of what makes a good city. As society changes, so does what it is we demand of our cities. We therefore must understand the city as constantly in a state of becoming. As a consequence we require a critical understanding of what types of processes cause the city to change over time. This course seeks to unite this realization with the concerns of urban practice. Throughout the 20th century, urban geographers examined the ways in which urban planners, architects and urban designers shaped the city. Conversely, early urban planners such as Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes were deeply concerned with geographical problems. In this course we bring an understanding of contemporary urban problems to the study of urban design and practice. The course requires students to select a topical concern and research what geographers and urbanists have concluded about it. With this understanding, students must collectively draw upon social and urban theory to develop an urban design scheme to respond to the topical issue. Throughout the course students will work in groups to develop a design scheme.
Prerequisites: One of the following is required: GEOG 020 , GEOG 157 , GEOG 172 , GEOG 241 , GEOG 248 , GEOG 258
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 257 - Internet Geography: Socioeconomic Impacts of Information Technologies
Spring 2018 Course Description:
In the span of a few decades, the Internet has become a driver of global change and has connected people and places to an unprecedented degree. However, to what extent does the Internet transform or supersede the structures, configurations, and arrangements that make up our world? How does the Internet interact with, and produce, geographies at various scales? In light of the rapidly changing environment influenced by the information revolution and the Internet itself, the answers to these questions are not universal, or even immediately apparent. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an explanatory framework that places the Internet into a broader historical, social and political-economic context. By adopting a geographical perspective, this course prepares students to challenge abstract notions of the Internet as a placeless informational cloud, by analyzing its grounded causes, consequences, and impacts at various scales. This course will cover a range of topics related to the history, technology, politics, regulation, and practices of the Internet and associated communication technologies. The course is centered on weekly readings and group discussions.
Prior Semesters Description:
Examines how the Internet has changed our society, economy, culture and geography. Explores the myths and the realities of the impacts derived from technological changes. Issues for discussions include an examination of ‘the death of distance’, social polarization and the ‘digital divide’ at the national and international scales, as well as the changing practices and modes of everyday social interactions. Explores how consumption and our conceptualization of leisure is changing as a result of the widespread use of the Internet.
Course Designation/Attribute: no
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 258 - Utopian Visions, Urban Realities: Planning Cities for the 21st Century
Although utopia literally means “no place” and utopias do not exist in any concrete sense, utopian thinking exerts a powerful hold on our imagination and continues to inspire a lot of approaches to urban policy, design and planning today. This course explores this thinking and will attempt to come to grips with various ideas about what utopias should be, how they have animated our thinking about city form and function, and how they have achieved certain material expressions in the twentieth-century urban context. It will also examine the contradictions and unintended consequences of utopian thinking in planning. Amongst other things, the course will grapple with questions of order versus disorder in the city, heterogeneity versus homogeneity, openness versus closure, and individual freedom versus collective necessity. It will draw upon geographical sources as well as a diverse array of other materials.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 259 - Global Change, Food and Farming Systems
This course explores issues in global, regional and local systems of food production, consumption, and sustainability, emphasizing the linkages of those systems to global environmental and economic change. We will explore interactions between agriculture and human societies (past and present), and consider the role of adaptation in agricultural innovation, decision-making, diffusion and change. The origins of agriculture (overview, major food crops in use today) will preface our analysis of contemporary farming systems. Themes such as demographic change, political economy and environment-development policy will be explored in depth throughout the course. Particular attention will be directed to the implications of changing land use systems, climate regimes, and economic liberalization and globalization for food security and food justice. We will study the implications of industrialization, urbanization, sociodemographic shifts, and institutional change for the diversity, supply, distribution and future of food, and for the broader sustainability of agro-ecosystems.
Prerequisites: GEOG 017 Environment and Society ; OR PERM
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall & spring
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GEOG 260 - GIS & Land Change Models
GIS & Land Change Models examines computerized models that simulate land change. Such models are important because land change influences socioeconomic development, biodiversity conservation, water resources, energy use, greenhouse gasses, and many other factors. Applications include projects to conserve land in Massachusetts and to Reduce Emissions due to Deforestation and Degradation in the tropics. Students learn fundamental concepts such as calibration, extrapolation, validation, and sensitivity, along with technical aspects of TerrSet’s Land Change Modeler and Geomod. The course carries the attribute for Problems of Practice. Prerequisite is Introduction to GIS, listed as GEOG 190 or IDCE 310 .
Prerequisites: Prerequisite is Intro to GIS, listed as GEOG 190 or IDCE 310 .
Course Designation/Attribute: POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every fall
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GEOG 261 - Decision Methods for Environmental Management and Policy
Information on environmental-impact assessments needs to be systematically organized and analyzed to be useful in the decision-making process. This course provides a survey of methods that are currently used to aid environmental decision makers (who include policy makers, environmental managers and affected populations). Covers techniques such as: decision analysis, benefit/cost analysis, multicriteria evaluation, multiobjective analysis, multiattribute utility theory, the analytical hierarchy process, and spatial-analytical methods using geographical information systems. These methods will be evaluated with respect to their theoretical foundations, systems formulation and appropriate application. A critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of these methods will also be discussed.
Prerequisites: Advanced undergraduates only; instructor permission required for registration
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 263 - The Climate System and Global Environmental Change
In order to understand and predict the Earth’s current and future climate, it is imperative to know the forces that can drive both natural and anthropogenic climate change. This course will utilize an Earth Systems approach towards climate science, meaning rather than simply cataloging the Earth’s history of climate change, we will focus on understanding the climate system’s response to both external and internal drivers. We will examine the interactions between atmosphere, ice, ocean, land surface, and vegetation, allowing us to touch on the fields of geology, ecology, paleobotany, glaciology, oceanography, meteorology, biogeochemistry, climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, and hydrology, among others. The goal of the course is to provide the scientific background that is necessary for understanding global environmental change-related issues as well as providing a basis for addressing the critical social and policy questions that cascade from these issues.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 274 - Africa’s Development in Global Context
Explores, in detail, the economic geographies of Sub-Saharan Africa; both their historical development and their contemporary manifestations in commodity chains, business practices, production systems, gender and environmental relations, entrepreneurial and innovative behavior, and rural and urban livelihood strategies. Emphasis is placed on examining how African economies relate to the rest of the world, how globalization is influencing the prospects for growth, autonomy, and sustainability in Africa, and how Africans actually produce, innovate, succeed, and struggle in their business activities. Confronts stereotypes about “backward” economic practices in Africa and encourages students to view Africans as capable agents of economic change not simply as passive victims of global or historical inequalities.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 279 - GIS & Map Comparison
GIS & Map Comparison investigates metrics that scientists use and abuse, especially in Geographic Information Science and Remote Sensing. Applications show how to compare two versions of the same phenomenon, such as comparison of an initial time versus a subsequent time, or comparison of predictions versus observations. Students learn how to compute and to interpret useful metrics such as Hits, Misses, False Alarms, Total Operating Characteristic, Mean Deviation, Mean Absolute Deviation among others. The professor wrote the book, literally. The course carries the attribute for Problems of Practice.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite is Intro to GIS, listed as GEOG 190 or IDCE 310 .
Course Designation/Attribute: FA, POP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every fall
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GEOG 280 - Urban Ecology: Cities as Ecosystems
Explores ecology and the social and physical geography of cities as systems built and inhabited by people, and constantly changed by social, biological and physical processes. This class of ecosystem is often neglected except in studies of pollution, yet it is home to many of the world’s people and to a surprising number of plant and animal species as well. Readings, lectures, discussion and written work combine landscape and systems ecology with physical and urban geography and environmental justice to broaden our understanding of city environments, both present and possible. In addition to our in-class academic meetings, field trips in Worcester and the surrounding Blackstone River Valley will offer a deep dive into the challenges of regional and historical land use, urban green and blue space management, and socio-hydrology; a $100 fee is charged to students at time of registration to cover administrative and transportation costs. Book costs for the course are minimal. Registration is by Permission only for undergraduates (email: rroychowdhury@clarku.edu).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 282 - Advanced Remote Sensing
Application of remote sensor systems in earth science and other disciplines; interpretation of multispectral scanner, RADAR and thermal imagery, classification, postclassification analysis, special transformations, multitemporal data analysis for change detection, the study of spectral characteristics of vegetation, soils, water, minerals and other materials. The specific objectives of the course are to acquaint the student with the physical principles underlying remote sensing systems and the primary remote-sensing data-collection systems; introduce the student to methods of interpreting and analyzing remotely sensed data; provide some insight concerning the applications of remote sensing in various discipline areas; and provide hands-on experience in digital image processing using software packages available in the computer lab.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 283 - Terrestrial Ecosystems and Global Change
Explores ecosystem responses to global environmental changes and how they feedback on the earth system. Students will learn about biophysical controls on energy, water, and carbon cycles, and how biogeography, vegetation physiology, and local to global climates influence surface-atmosphere exchanges, which then feedback on biogeography and climate. The course introduces the theory, remote sensing, and computational modeling of biophysical, biogeochemical, and ecosystem dynamical processes active in shaping the terrestrial biosphere. Students will be exposed to methods of land surface and ecosystem process modeling through computer tutorials with numerical simulation, and will train some basics of writing computer code. Can fulfill the Geography or Earth System Science Capstone.
Prerequisites: GEOG 104 or GEOG 116 or GEOG 119 or GEOG 205 or GEOG 232 or GEOG 263 or BIOL 216
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 286 - Special Topics
Devoted to a specific topic unique for each semester and instructor. May be repeatable for credit.; SPRING 2021 SEC. 2:CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIES OF THE UNITED STATES: RACE, INDIGENEITY, AND NATURE-This course will critically look at how ideas of “race” and “indigeneity” are intertwined with “nature” in a U.S. American context. Nature is often imagined as external to human society and culture. However, many social scientists and humanities scholars criticize the Eurocentric separation of nature and culture and of environment and society. We will focus in particular on environmental histories and ideas of nature that are entangled in settler-colonialism, racial oppression, eugenics, militarization, pollution, catastrophe, and health. At the same time, this course will present critiques of how nature is mobilized for empire in the United States, by presenting alternative ideas of nature from selected indigenous studies and critical race scholarship. This course will integrate social scientific and humanities-based critiques of nature and the environment that intersect with settler-colonial, indigenous, and critical race studies. Students will be expected to read and prepare notes on several complex texts to discuss in class session each week. To prepare for these discussions, students will submit online reflections of each text for others to read and comment on. Each week, one group of students will be responsible for preparing discussion questions and topics and facilitate discussions. Students will be responsible for a final research paper on one particular topic in the course, related to their own interests. Students will hand in several assignments over the course of the seminar: an outline of their proposed final paper, an annotated bibliography, an introduction, and the final paper.
FALL 2020 SEC. 1: ARBORETUM RESEARCH- This course is predominantly field-based (i.e., outdoors three times per week) and focuses on improving the condition of Clark University’s Hadwen Arboretum. Students will learn techniques in tree health maintenance and forest inventory. Students will also participate in trail maintenance and the creation of a new trail for public access. Training in power tools wills will also be provided. The goal of this section of the course is to enhance the ecological integrity of the Hadwen Arboretum and update a GIS database for online consumption. SEC. 4: ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST -This course will critically explore the contemporary and historical environmental issues associated with the Middle East in order to understand the relationship between nature, politics, colonialism, culture, and geography. First, the course will interrogate the geographic label, “Middle East,” to understand how American and European literature, politics, and culture created different bodies of knowledge and replicated popular discourses that justify intervention in West Asia and North Africa. Understanding the “Middle East” as a geographical construction also allows us to critically think through how environmental issues are interconnected with the global histories of colonialism, imperialism, and empire, as well as the local political, cultural, and environmental diversity of the contemporary “Middle East,” that is, North Africa, Western Asia, and Mediterranean states.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring
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GEOG 287 - New Methods in Earth Observation
Understanding the Earth System depends on observing observations of socioeconomic and environmental patterns and processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. These scales span seconds to decades in time, and centimeters to millions of square kilometers in space. Earth Observation (also known as remote sensing) is the only feasible means for providing this range of perspectives, but our ability to collect data across all necessary scales is currently limited by inherent tradeoffs between the extent, duration, frequency, and resolution of observation. This suggests the possibility that there may be important, but currently unknown, phenomena that exist within our observational blind spots. Some of this blindness is imposed by physics (there are only so many photons reflected from the Earth, and these are proportional to wavelength), but many are due to engineering or economic constraints (some sensors are too expensive to use more than once or over a large area). These latter hurdles are falling, however, as new “big data” analytical techniques emerge, and combine with increasingly available, high quality, low-cost data made possible by a host of new innovations, including cheap satellites, unmanned aerial systems, inexpensive cellphone enabled field sensors, and the availability of a large pool of internet-enabled workers who can interpret these data in ways that computers cannot. By harnessing these new developments, geographers can make breakthroughs in understanding Earth System dynamics, while answering fundamental but unresolved questions.
This course is a skills-based follow-on to GEOG 391-Innovation in Earth Observation, a seminar that reviews the key limitations facing Earth Observation (EO), the recent developments that are challenging these limitations, what limitations remain, and what new challenges are being posed by EO advances.
Prerequisites: Basic programming experience required.
Undergraduate students by instructor permission only
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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GEOG 289 - Development Policy
A research seminar for students with some background in development studies. After an introduction on policy and policy-making institutions, the seminar critically examines recent tendencies in development policy, particularly the policies advocated by the World Bank, IMF and WTO. The course also looks at alternative development.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 293 - Introduction to Remote Sensing
This course is designed to introduce the students to the principles and analytical methods of satellite remote sensing as applied to environmental systems (e.g., land-cover classification, vegetation monitoring, etc.). Lectures will cover principles of remote sensing, sensor types, as well as the processing and analysis of multispectral satellite images (e.g. Landsat and SPOT). A series of hands-on lab exercises will complement students’ understanding of lecture material and also helps students to become familiar with image processing functions of the IDRISI image analysis software. Particular emphasis will be placed on final group project that brings a real world perspective to the learning process.
Prerequisites: Vector GIS or Introduction to GIS, and must register for Lab. Introduction to GISc and Introduction to Quantitative Methods desirable.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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GEOG 296 - Advanced Raster GIS
This course builds on Introduction to GIS by delving deeper into raster GIS. Topics include time-series analysis, uncertainty assessment, multi-objective decision making, land-change modeling, and spatial statistics. Concepts in lectures are illustrated using the Idrisi software. Final project is required. This is a prerequisite for the fifth year Masters program in GIS and is a requirement for the GISDE masters program.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 /GEOG 390 / IDCE 310 or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every spring
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GEOG 297 - Honors
Students receive variable credit for advanced research & readings in the honors program.
Anticipated Terms Offered: ES
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GEOG 298 - Internship
Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: ES
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GEOG 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors & seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved & directed by a facutly member. Offered for variable credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: ES
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GEOG 301 - Taste, Culture, Power: Historical Geographies of Food
How does our modern penchant for caffeine, sweets, fresh produce, and meat relate to imperialism and inequality? Across time and space, humans have ingested plants, animals, and substances for sustenance, nourishment, pleasure, medicine, and spirituality. Every food and meal we consume represents a confluence of tastes, cultures, and powers that can be traced back to the interconnected histories and geographies of slavery, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, militarism, and capitalism. This seminar is intended to help students develop foundational knowledge in critical agro-food studies. Through readings, written assignments, discussions, and group projects, students will examine big questions, such as the colonial roots of children’s sweet tooth; the socio-ecological “hoofprint” of animal-based diets; the geopolitical origins of the calorie; gender and racial ideologies undergirding the invention of “Betty Crocker” and “Aunt Jemima”; and the future possibilities of food.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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GEOG 304 - Cartography and Map Design (0.5 credit)
This course studies the elements of cartography with emphasis on the map as a basic form of communication. It explores contemporary design concepts and various graphic techniques. The course covers the key principles of cartography to enable students to use GIS software for the creation of communicative, compelling, visually pleasing maps that highlight spatial relationships among time-space phenomena. This course requires intensive use of GIS softward and will require the completion of a final project portfolio. Students should have knowledge of IDRISI Tiaga/TerrSet and ArcGIS. Open to doctoral and masters students, advanced undergrads may ask to enroll with permission.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 Introduction to Geographic Information Science or IDCE 310 Introduction to GIS is required
Anticipated Terms Offered: every other year
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GEOG 305 - Introduction to Hydrology
Overview of what governs the hydrological cycle’s major components of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, surface water, and groundwater. Core principles of physical hydrology will be introduced including rainfall-runoff processes, surface and subsurface storage and flows, and land-atmosphere exchange. Students will also learn about human influences on the water cycle, and consider management of water resources at field to watershed scales. Upon completion of this course, students will:
- Understand the essential elements of hydrological processes and how these govern the distribution of water in the earth system.
- Be able to solve the surface water balance and analyze its controls in different environments.
- Have the basic skills needed to explore water resource issues, such as quantitative understanding of the likelihood of extreme rainfall and flooding events, flow directions and rates in surface and ground waters, or land use/land cover effects on hydrological processes.
- Have new appreciation for fundamental tools and terms used in the field of hydrology including mass balance, steady-state, flux-gradient relations, continuity, dimensional analysis, and probability.
The course assumes an introductory background in earth and environmental sciences. A background in one or more of the following courses will also be helpful: physics (PHYS 110 /PHYS 111 ), calculus (MATH 120 /MATH 121 ), or statistics (GEOG 110 ). Three of the lab sessions will require extended hours. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Prerequisites:
Corequisites:
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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GEOG 309 - Trends in Forest Ecology
Understanding the ecology of forest ecosystems is central to understanding and addressing many contemporary environmental issues. In this doctoral and masters student seminar, we will read the primary literature, which provides the foundation for contemporary ecological understanding, as well as recent primary literature, which illustrates recent trends in forest ecology research.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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GEOG 310 - Qualitative Research Methods, Skills and Applications
Examines the purpose, scope and procedures of qualitative research, especially as applied to human geography. Emphasis is on epistemologies underlying various approaches to qualitative research. Readings will draw on a variety of work in the social sciences, especially anthropology, geography, sociology and women’s studies. We examine a range of qualitative methods, including interviews, participant and nonparticipant observation, ethnography, action research and discourse analysis. Through case-study readings, we examine how scholars employ these methods in different research contexts, with particular attention to the ethical and practical considerations of doing so. The course will engage theoretical debates relevant to qualitative research by addressing questions such as: How does qualitative research challenge the practice of social “science” and the search for “universal truths”? How do we represent the world or multiple understandings and perspectives of it? What are the implications of using qualitative data for the researcher, the research product and the “researched”? How do we interpret qualitative data and present it to scholarly audiences? Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 311 - Introduction to Quantitative Methods
GEOG311 is an introductory course in applied statistical analysis with emphasis on computer skills. Students gain proficiency in using spreadsheets to organize data and to perform the most common statistical procedures such as univariate analysis, hypothesis testing, estimation of means, regression, and association. Undergraduate students receive credit for a Formal Analysis perspective. Geography majors receive credit for a skills course. Environmental Science majors receive credit for a statistics course. Doctoral and masters students receive credit by registering for GEOG311. Prerequisites are high school math such as Algebra 2 and/or pre-calculus.
Prerequisites:
Prerequisites are high school math such as Algebra 2 and/or pre-calculus.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered at least once per year
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GEOG 314 - Research Proposal Writing in Geography
Covers major topics in empirical social science research design, including problem definition, research strategies, sampling, data-collection and data analysis methods, and budgeting. Docotral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 317 - Research
This is a variable unit graduate course for students engaged in research at the PhD level.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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GEOG 318 - Explanation in Geography
This seminar explores the main types of explanation in geography and other social sciences, including positivist, existentialist, realist, Marxist, feminist and postmodernist approaches. The seminar focuses on tensions between structural and nonstructural explanation and the integration of theory with empirical facts. Meets first-year core course requirement for geography doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 321 - Ecologies of Resistance and Transformation: Alternatives to Development
This graduate seminar course explores the creation of alternative ecologies at the community and regional scale and their relation to global environmental change and economic and cultural globalization trends. The class examines works of social, ecological and cultural theories in light of several case studies including: Mondrogon in Spain; Chiapas and Oaxaca in Mexico: urban collectives in Denmark, Mexico and the U.S.; Science Shops for environmental design in India’s Naramada Valley and other sites: alternative farming in Amish and Mennonite communities in the US; permaculture farmers in Australia and the UK; Forest Peoples’ communities in the Amazon and Mekong River Basins; international organizations such as Via Campesina; and the parallel efforts of Eco-Villages and Transition Towns. We will draw upon theories of Ecosystems, Networks, Complexity, Community, Autonomy, and the Commons, as well as theories of Justice, Identity, Difference and Solidarity. These theoretical readings will inform our understanding of cases studies and vice versa, as we seek to imagine Other Possible Worlds. We will use films, readings and discussions to critically engage with existing literature and examples and to create and question our own alternative visions of possible futures. Open to Geography doctoral students, Geography MS GIS and ICDE masters students and possibly undergraduates with special permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 323 - Forest Ecology and Management Seminar
Forests are among the most important ecosystems on Earth. The interacting effects of climate change, increased settlement in forests, and other forces has led to difficult questions regarding what is actually driving change in forest ecosystems and what management strategies are most appropriate. In this context, the seminar examines current primary literature dealing with forest ecology and management and focuses on conducting research in forest ecosystems and deriving appropriate management recommendations from that research. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 324 - Economy and Environment
Environmental problems are largely the result of economic developments and human settlement patterns. This course involves the examination of different types of economies, various institutional forms and constraints, and cultural features that have environmental implications. Of particular importance are the types of futures that people envision, and the sorts of economic features that must be developed to achieve desirable (or sustainable) futures. Ecological modernization, political and social ecologies, voluntary simplicity, industrial ecology, community-based entrepreneurial economies, “other than capitalist” economies, and other discourses/practices will be examined for their economic and environmental implications. We will also consider global production networks and fair trade, third party certification, and corporate social responsibility. A practical project will be undertaken by each student. Food production and consumption will be a principal focus of the course. Open to doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 329 - Critical Theory: Space, Society and Change
Nearly 75 years ago Max Horkheimer, echoing Marx, defined critical theory as distinguished by its attempt to critique and change society. It is therefore not simply a tool for understanding, but also a method for overcoming injustice, domination and oppression. Over the past 50 years, geographers have found inspiration in this transformative mode of theorizing in research fields as diverse as housing, resource management, race relations and climatology. But in what state do we find critical theory today? For some geographers, critical theory has transformed into a pluralist venture that is symbolized by a politics of disagreement and a modest normativity. However, others fervently disagree with this project, arguing that we now face unprecedented challenges that cannot be dealt with by this brand of modest theory or, paradoxically, those more assertive types of theory which preceded it. Simply, it is thought that previous critical theory is unable to produce change in an era of reflexive cynicism, sophism and post-political politics. The seminar follows these debates by tracing the ways in which geographers have historically engaged with critical theory and evaluating where this engagement stands today. In order to achieve the latter, the seminar will examine a range of contemporary critical social theory, including an exploration of Slavoj Zizek’s claim that we need a new theory of everything(!), Alain Badiou’s interpretation of politics as event and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s arguments about critical theory’s kernel concern. Open to doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 332 - Landscape Ecology
Considers the relationships between spatial patterns in landscape structure (physical, biological and cultural) and ecological processes. Role of ecosystem pattern in mass and energy transfers, disturbance regimes, species’ persistence, applications of remote sensing and GIS for landscape characterization and modeling are examined. Prerequisites: GEOG 190 OR IDCE 310 . GEOG 116 Forest Ecology is strongly recommended. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 - Introduction to Geographic Information Science OR IDCE 310 - Intro to Geographic Information Science
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 333 - Terrestrial Ecosystems and Global Change
Explores ecosystem responses to global environmental changes and how they feedback on the earth system. Students will learn about biophysical controls on energy, water, and carbon cycles, and how biogeography, vegetation physiology, and local to global climates influence surface-atmosphere exchanges, which then feedback on biogeography and climate. The course introduces the theory, remote sensing, and computational modeling of biophysical, biogeochemical, and ecosystem dynamical processes active in shaping the terrestrial biosphere. Students will be exposed to methods of land surface and ecosystem process modeling through computer tutorials with numerical simulation, and will train some basics of writing computer code. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 336 - Wildlife Conservation GIS Research Seminar
The course will follow a workshop-seminar and laboratory format in collaboration with research staff at Clark Labs and the Wildlife Conservation Society based in New York City. Students will work in small groups (i.e., no larger than three) for the semester on collaborative conservation projects in Rwanda, Guatemala, Cambodia, and other countries. Students will apply GIS and remote sensing skills to achieve explicit conservation goals related to land change assessment, hydrologic modeling, and ecosystem services valuation/modeling. Work will be performed in close collaboration with Wildlife Conservation Society research staff. Project results will be presented by student teams at the end of the semester to Wildlife Conservation Society staff. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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GEOG 337 - Feminism, Nature and Culture
The purpose of this course is to expose students to major currents of contemporary social theory that have developed around “nature” and “woman” or nature and gender. We will explore a number of important contemporary topics including: biotechnology and “life,” food and identity, the body/science/fashion, human and nonhuman animal relations, and the manner in which conceptualizations of nature and of women (or gender roles) mutually constitute and reinforce one another. Our principal goals are to analyze and critique the normative idea of what is “nature” or what is “natural” as it pertains to gender, environmental processes, other life forms, and human social and economic existence in general. Because feminists have been instrumental in leading much of this analysis and critique, we lean heavily on feminist theories. We will explore these ideas through science fiction, magical realism, cartoons, movies, other fiction, social histories and biographies. By the end of the semester, students should be adept at decoding representations of nature and gender in the popular media as well as in academic scholarship. Students should also have a reasonable understanding of the development of and debates surrounding biotechnology and gender, identity and gender, and ecofeminist thought. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 338 - Current Research in Geography
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.
Anticipated Terms Offered: offered every year fall and spring semesters
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GEOG 340 - Graduate Seminar in Critical Mobilities
This course is a graduate reading seminar on the field of mobilities studies. In this seminar we trace genealogies, explore major debates in the field, and examine how various strands of critical theory have shaped the study of mobility. Our readings analyze not only the practice and experiences of mobility, but also the complex networks and infrastructures that engender and prohibit the movement of people, information, capital and material objects. Our course goals are (1) to develop a thorough understanding of how scholars have approached questions of movement and stasis (2) to think about opportunities for geographers to critically intervene upon and expand mobilities studies in the present. This course is open to graduate students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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GEOG 343 - Human Dimensions of Global Change
Global environmental changes involve worldwide transformations of land, oceans and atmosphere, driven by human activities interwoven with natural processes. Its human dimensions involve the complex causes and consequences of people’s individual and collective actions. This advanced seminar investigates the human dimensions of global environmental change, examining its socioeconomic, political and environmental causes and consequences. We will explore urgent, complex social, environmental and management problems, such as changes in tropical forests, grasslands and urbanizing areas; climate change and global food security; emerging infectious diseases; social institutions, collective action and international environmental regimes; spatial methods in global land change research; global land grabs; climate adaption and mitigation; environmental equity and justice, and others. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: every other fall
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GEOG 345 - Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere
The Earth’s cryosphere (frozen planet) plays a critical role in shaping the world in which we live. The great ice sheets of the past shaped the surface of the continents; changes in snow cover and sea ice extent is amplifying global warming; rapid thinning of glaciers and ice sheets is accelerating global sea level rise; and abrupt snow melt is one of the primary causes of catastrophic flooding. Understanding how and why the cryosphere experiences such rapid changes is of ever increasing societal importance. Changes in the cryosphere occur on massive scales and in hostile environments, making them highly suited for analysis using remote sensing.
In this class students will learn about the physical characteristics of the cryosphere’s four main components; glaciers, sea ice, snow and permafrost and the role that each component plays in modulating the Earth’s climate system. Students will build upon previous remote sensing knowledge and learn about visible, Lidar, radar and microwave satellite sensors and apply this knowledge to measure changes in cryosphere characteristics (e.g. area, volume, mass, reflectance, melt, and velocity). Students will be required to complete a self-directed and novel group research project that they will present to the class the end of the term. The course will also focus on student skill development with several frequent collaborative projects conducting remote sensing analysis using Matlab. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Prerequisites: GEOG 383 or equivalent background; some programming knowledge such as C, Python, R, Matlab, is beneficial but not required
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
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GEOG 347 - Intermediate Quantitative Methods in Geography
Continues development begun in GEOG 110 of computer-based methods in geographical analysis. Focuses on bivariate and multivariate regression, discriminant analysis, factor analysis, log-linear models and analysis of spatial and temporal data. Includes lab work with PCs, spreadsheets and SPSS-X statistical software package. Meets skill requirement for senior undergraduate geography majors and doctoral students and masters students.
Prerequisites: GEOG 110 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 348 - Social Justice and the City
Cities today face unprecedented challenges. Migration, rapid urbanization, growing inequality, authoritarian governments, racial tensions, terrorism, climate change, and the list goes on. This course examines the concept of social justice in light of contemporary philosophical debates and explores its various relations to the city and urban development, using a geographical perspective. After engaging various dialogues on social justice, the course turns its attention to the ‘urban question’. It asks what is distinctive about the issue of social justice in an urban context and whether we need a more geographically-informed viewpoint from with to deploy our positions on social justice. In the final section of the course, various urban issues and problems are explored using developed understandings of social justice. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 349 - Advanced Topics in Spatial Analysis
Explores spatial statistics and spatial decision models. The spatial statistics part of the course focuses on point, block and global estimation, fitting variogram models, kriging and spatial simulation. The prescriptive modeling part will focus on location/allocation-based decisions models including private- and public-sector facility location problems and land-allocation models. The topics covered are closely linked to the underlying spatial analytic methodologies used in, and often illuminated by examples developed with, Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The spatial statistics module in the IDRISI GIS will be used. The class is run on the “Socratic” method with some high-tech twists. Students are assigned a topic per week to prepare material and lead discussion. Pass/fail. Grading is based on class participation.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 351 - Seminar in Critical Resource/Food Geographies
This course examines major questions in two important areas of critical geography: natural resources and food studies. Each topic will take one-half of the semester. We will first examine questions of nature and culture, and the role of the state and biopolitics, which are of concern for scholars of both topics. We will then turn to political economic theory on commodity chains or value chains, and power relations along those chains. We will address questions such as the “resource curse” and ethical consumption. Questions of sovereignty, territoriality, and investment relations will also be examined, as well as, questions of state and quasi-state governance. The resource component will emphasize water, minerals and oil/gas. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 352 - GIS & Land Change Science
Students work collaboratively to create new GIS-based methods to measure and to explain land change over time and its environmental consequences. The work is linked to research at Clark University, thus topics vary from year to year. Some products of previous years are vidoes available at www.clarku.edu/~rpontius. Students must take initiative and be creative because the course will address issues for which standard methods of analysis do not yet exist. A goal of the seminar is to create and to communicate the methods for the professional community beyond Clark University. Students will make regular oral presntations in class to report on progress. Students become qualified to make presentations at professional conferences such as the Association of American Geographers annual meeting. A prerequisite is Introduction to GIS or equivalent competency in GIS. This course is designed for doctoral and masters students, but senior undergraduates and other qualified students can enroll with special permission. rpontius@clarku.edu
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 or GEOG 390 or permission from Professor Pontius (rpontius@clarku.edu).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every fall
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GEOG 356 - Utopian Visions, Urban Realities: Planning Cities for the 21st Century
Although utopia literally means “no place” and utopias do not exist in any concrete sense, utopian thinking exerts a powerful hold on our imagination and continues to inspire a lot of approaches to urban policy, design and planning today. This course explores this thinking and will attempt to come to grips with various ideas about what utopias should be, how they have animated our thinking about city form and function, and how they have achieved certain material expressions in the twentieth-century urban context. It will also examine the contradictions and unintended consequences of utopian thinking in planning. Amongst other things, the course will grapple with questions of order versus disorder in the city, heterogeneity versus homogeneity, openness versus closure, and individual freedom versus collective necessity. It will draw upon geographical sources as well as a diverse array of other materials. Open to doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 357 - Internet Geography: Socioeconomic Impacts of Information Technologies
Spring 2018 Course Description:
In the span of a few decades, the Internet has become a driver of global change and has connected people and places to an unprecedented degree. However, to what extent does the Internet transform or supersede the structures, configurations, and arrangements that make up our world? How does the Internet interact with, and produce, geographies at various scales? In light of the rapidly changing environment influenced by the information revolution and the Internet itself, the answers to these questions are not universal, or even immediately apparent. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an explanatory framework that places the Internet into a broader historical, social and political-economic context. By adopting a geographical perspective, this course prepares students to challenge abstract notions of the Internet as a placeless informational cloud, by analyzing its grounded causes, consequences, and impacts at various scales. This course will cover a range of topics related to the history, technology, politics, regulation, and practices of the Internet and associated communication technologies. The course is centered on weekly readings and group discussions.
Prior Semesters Course Description:
Examines how the Internet has changed our society, economy, culture and geography. Explores the myths and the realities of the impacts derived from technological changes. Issues for discussions include an examination of ‘the death of distance’, social polarization and the ‘digital divide’ at the national and international scales, as well as the changing practices and modes of everyday social interactions. Explores how consumption and our conceptualization of leisure is changing as a result of the widespread use of the Internet.
Course Designation/Attribute: no
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 359 - Global Change, Food and Farming Systems
This course explores issues in global, regional and local systems of food production, consumption, and sustainability, emphasizing the linkages of those systems to global environmental and economic change. We will explore interactions between agriculture and human societies (past and present), and consider the role of adaptation in agricultural innovation, decision-making, diffusion and change. The origins of agriculture (overview, major food crops in use today) will preface our analysis of contemporary farming systems. Themes such as demographic change, political economy and environment-development policy will be explored in depth throughout the course. Particular attention will be directed to the implications of changing land use systems, climate regimes, and economic liberalization and globalization for food security and food justice. We will study the implications of industrialization, urbanization, sociodemographic shifts, and institutional change for the diversity, supply, distribution and future of food, and for the broader sustainability of agro-ecosystems.
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall & spring
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GEOG 360 - GIS & Land Change Models
GIS & Land Change Models examines computerized models that simulate land change. Such models are important because land change influences socioeconomic development, biodiversity conservation, water resources, energy use, greenhouse gasses, and many other factors. Applications include suburbanization in Massachusetts and deforestation in projects to Reduce Emissions due to Deforestation and Degradation. Students use TerrSet’s Land Change Modeler and Geomod to learn concepts such as calibration, validation, extrapolation, and sensitivity.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite is Intro to GIS, listed as GEOG 190 or IDCE 310 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every fall
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GEOG 361 - Decision Methods for Environmental Management and Policy
Information on environmental-impact assessments needs to be systematically organized and analyzed to be useful in the decision-making process. This course provides a survey of methods that are currently used to aid environmental decision makers (who include policy makers, environmental managers and affected populations). Covers techniques such as: decision analysis, benefit/cost analysis, multicriteria evaluation, multiobjective analysis, multiattribute utility theory, the analytical hierarchy process, and spatial-analytical methods using geographical information systems. These methods will be evaluated with respect to their theoretical foundations, systems formulation and appropriate application. A critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of these methods will also be discussed. Open to doctoral and masters students. Advanced undergraduates require instuctor permission to register.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year/
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GEOG 362 - Seminar on Globalization
Examines contemporary literature on globalization from various disciplinary perspectives. Both theoretical and empirical literature from Economics, Geography, Sociology, Political Science and Anthropology on various aspects of globalization, including governance, interdependence, labor relations and ‘networks’ will be analyzed. Explores the possibilities of developing a geographic paradigm to better understand the relationship between the global and the local. Open to doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 363 - The Climate System and Global Environmental Change
In order to understand and predict the Earth’s current and future climate, it is imperative to know the forces that can drive both natural and anthropogenic climate change. This course will utilize an Earth Systems approach towards climate science, meaning rather than simply cataloging the Earth’s history of climate change, we will focus on understanding the climate system’s response to both external and internal drivers. We will examine the interactions between atmosphere, ice, ocean, land surface, and vegetation, allowing us to touch on the fields of geology, ecology, paleobotany, glaciology, oceanography, meteorology, biogeochemistry, climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, and hydrology, among others. The goal of the course is to provide the scientific background that is necessary for understanding global environmental change-related issues as well as providing a basis for addressing the critical social and policy questions that cascade from these issues. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 366 - Topics in Urban Geography
Topics in Urban Geography engages a substantive theme within urban geography and cognate disciplines, focusing first on theorizations of the theme, then substantive empirical investigations of it. Over the course of the semester, doctoral students will read a range of scholarly texts and will place them in two regards: first, in the broader historical and conceptual sweep of urban geographical scholarship; and second, in critical engagement with the goals, methods, and contributions of the specific work in the subfield. Since the particular topic in a given semester will vary, doctoral students can take the course more than once for credit, as long as the subtitle is different from a previously taken course. Open for doctoral and masters students. Open to doctoral students, others by permission only.
In the topics seminar subtitled “Urban Politics,” we will consider fundamental contemporary scholarship and debates around urban politics and urban geography. We will interrogate the intersections of urban geography and political geography, focusing on themes related to: citizenship, place identity, state theory, and urban governance. Our overall goal is to understand the ways that scholars, particularly within or in dialogue with urban geography, conceptualize “politics” and citizen-state-subjectivity relations.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall - every other year
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GEOG 368 - The Development of Western Geographic Thought
Examines principal orientations, themes and debates within emergent professional geography communities in the 19th and 20th centuries and the professional structure of the field in research, educational and applied contexts. Required for, and open only to, first year geography doctoral students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 369 - Relational Political-Economic Geographies
Relationality - the notion that the world is constituted and transformed by contingent, dynamic, and embedded relationships between people, places, objects, and structures - has emerged as a key concept in human geography. This course interrogates critically the idea of relationality and assesses its significance and possibilities for contemporary thinking in economic and development geography. Participants will read, critique, discuss, and debate a variety of theories about and sub-disciplinary perspectives on relational thinking - from economic sociology, organizational studies, critical realism, phenomenology, actor-network theory, Marxism, feminism, urban-economic geography, and development studies - and evaluate how these works might inform our understandings of contemporary political-economic issues. For doctoral students only.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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GEOG 373 - Seminar in Urban Geography
In this seminar we will consider fundamental geographical aspects of urban theory. Our goal is to undestand the ways that scholars have approached the study of cities, and to compare and contrast the epistemological assumptions underlying different approaches to “the urban.” We will critically evaluate major theoretical perspectives in light of their contribution to contemporary research. Open to doctoral students but masters students may request permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 375 - Technology and Sustainability: Perspectives from the Global South
Examines the nature of technologies and their relationships to socioeconomic and environmental change in the developing world. Readings and discussions will address and critique theories on technology change, the role of technologies in development, and their real-world implications (good and bad) for developing regions. Theoretical literature will be linked to empirical case studies of agricultural, energy, financing, information-communication, and/or manufacturing technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South/Southeast Asia. The key objective of the course is to deepen and complicate students’ understandings of the ways in which technologies are developed, diffused, and absorbed and about how these processes influence communities and economies in the Global South.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 377 - Africa’s Development in Global Context
Explores, in detail, the economic geographies of Sub-Saharan Africa; both their historical development and their contemporary manifestations in commodity chains, business practices, production systems, gender and environmental relations, entrepreneurial and innovative behavior, and rural and urban livelihood strategies. Emphasis is placed on examining how African economies relate to the rest of the world, how globalization is influencing the prospects for growth, autonomy, and sustainability in Africa, and how Africans actually produce, innovate, succeed, and struggle in their business activities. Confronts stereotypes about “backward” economic practices in Africa and encourages students to view Africans as capable agents of economic change not simply as passive victims of global or historical inequalities. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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GEOG 379 - GIS & Map Comparison
GIS & Map Comparison investigates metrics that scientists use and abuse, especially in Geographic Information Science and Remote Sensing. Applications show how to compare two versions of the same phenomenon, such as comparison of an initial time versus a subsequent time, or comparison of predictions versus observations. Students learn how to compute and to interpret useful metrics such as Hits, Misses, False Alarms, Total Operating Characteristic, Mean Deviation, Mean Absolute Deviation among others. The professor wrote the book, literally. The course carries the attribute for Problems of Practice.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite is Intro to GIS, listed as GEOG 190 or IDCE 310 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every fall
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GEOG 380 - Urban Ecology: Cities as Ecosystems
Explores ecology and the social and physical geography of cities as systems built and inhabited by people, and constantly changed by social, biological and physical processes. This class of ecosystem is often neglected except in studies of pollution, yet it is home to many of the world’s people and to a surprising number of plant and animal species as well. Readings, lectures, discussion and written work combine landscape and systems ecology with physical and urban geography and environmental justice to broaden our understanding of city environments, both present and possible. In addition to our in-class academic meetings, field trips in Worcester and the surrounding Blackstone River Valley will offer a deep dive into the challenges of regional and historical land use, urban green and blue space management, and socio-hydrology; a $100 fee is charged to students at time of registration to cover administrative and transportation costs. Book costs for the course are minimal. Registration is by Permission only for undergraduates (email: rroychowdhury@clarku.edu).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 382 - Advanced Remote Sensing
Application of remote sensor systems in earth science and other disciplines; interpretation of multispectral scanner, RADAR and thermal imagery, classification, postclassification analysis, special transformations, multitemporal data analysis for change detection, the study of spectral characteristics of vegetation, soils, water, minerals and other materials. The specific objectives of the course are to acquaint the student with the physical principles underlying remote sensing systems and the primary remote-sensing data-collection systems; introduce the student to methods of interpreting and analyzing remotely sensed data; provide some insight concerning the applications of remote sensing in various discipline areas; and provide hands-on experience in digital image processing using software packages available in the computer lab. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 383 - Introduction to Remote Sensing
This course is designed to introduce the students to the principles and analytical methods of satellite remote sensing as applied to environmental systems (e.g., land-cover classification, vegetation monitoring, etc.). Lectures will cover principles of remote sensing, sensor types, as well as the processing and analysis of multispectral satellite images (e.g. Landsat and SPOT). A series of hands-on lab exercises will complement students’ understanding of lecture material and also helps students to become familiar with image processing functions of the IDRISI image analysis software. Particular emphasis will be placed on final group project that brings a real world perspective to the learning process. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Prerequisites: Vector GIS or Raster GIS, and must register for Lab.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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GEOG 385 - Proposal Writing
Offered for variable credit to geography doctoral students only who are working on their proposal writing.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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GEOG 386 - Special Topics
Devoted to a specific topic unique for each semester and instructor. May be repeatable for credit.; SPRING 2021 SEC. 1: ENERGY GEOGRAPHIES -This course will examine the rapidly changing geographies of energy production, distribution, and consumption, with particular attention to : i) how transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources might transform those geographies; ii) the implications of such transition for social justice, sustainability, and other aspects of human geography (e.g., of economic activity, landscape formation, etc.); and iii) the theoretical and political frameworks we use to understand such dynamics.; SEC. 2:CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIES OF THE UNITED STATES: RACE, INDIGENEITY, AND NATURE-This course will critically look at how ideas of “race” and “indigeneity” are intertwined with “nature” in a U.S. American context. Nature is often imagined as external to human society and culture. However, many social scientists and humanities scholars criticize the Eurocentric separation of nature and culture and of environment and society. We will focus in particular on environmental histories and ideas of nature that are entangled in settler-colonialism, racial oppression, eugenics, militarization, pollution, catastrophe, and health. At the same time, this course will present critiques of how nature is mobilized for empire in the United States, by presenting alternative ideas of nature from selected indigenous studies and critical race scholarship. This course will integrate social scientific and humanities-based critiques of nature and the environment that intersect with settler-colonial, indigenous, and critical race studies. Students will be expected to read and prepare notes on several complex texts to discuss in class session each week. To prepare for these discussions, students will submit online reflections of each text for others to read and comment on. Each week, one group of students will be responsible for preparing discussion questions and topics and facilitate discussions. Students will be responsible for a final research paper on one particular topic in the course, related to their own interests. Students will hand in several assignments over the course of the seminar: an outline of their proposed final paper, an annotated bibliography, an introduction, and the final paper.
FALL 2020 SEC. 1: ARBORETUM RESEARCH- This course is predominantly field-based (i.e., outdoors three times per week) and focuses on improving the condition of Clark University’s Hadwen Arboretum. Students will learn techniques in tree health maintenance and forest inventory. Students will also participate in trail maintenance and the creation of a new trail for public access. Training in power tools wills will also be provided. The goal of this section of the course is to enhance the ecological integrity of the Hadwen Arboretum and update a GIS database for online consumption.; SEC. 2: ENERGY GEOGRAPHIES -This course will examine the rapidly changing geographies of energy production, distribution, and consumption, with particular attention to : i) how transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources might transform those geographies; ii) the implications of such transition for social justice, sustainability, and other aspects of human geography (e.g., of economic activity, landscape formation, etc.); and iii) the theoretical and political frameworks we use to understand such dynamics.; SEC. 3: HABITAT MODELING-Species distribution models (SDMs), are increasingly used to evaluate the impacts of global change on biodiversity, to assess protection status, and for protected areas planning. This 7 week course introduces students to habitat modeling methods and applications. The course starts with an introduction to ecological niche modeling, and continues with topics of data gathering, pre-processing, modeling (including statistical and machine learning algorithms), and validation. Topics will be covered through a combination of lectures, discussion of assigned readings and take home exercises.; SEC. 4: ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST -This course will critically explore the contemporary and historical environmental issues associated with the Middle East in order to understand the relationship between nature, politics, colonialism, culture, and geography. First, the course will interrogate the geographic label, “Middle East,” to understand how American and European literature, politics, and culture created different bodies of knowledge and replicated popular discourses that justify intervention in West Asia and North Africa. Understanding the “Middle East” as a geographical construction also allows us to critically think through how environmental issues are interconnected with the global histories of colonialism, imperialism, and empire, as well as the local political, cultural, and environmental diversity of the contemporary “Middle East,” that is, North Africa, Western Asia, and Mediterranean states.
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall & spring
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GEOG 387 - New Methods in Earth Observation
Understanding the Earth System depends on observing observations of socioeconomic and environmental patterns and processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. These scales span seconds to decades in time, and centimeters to millions of square kilometers in space. Earth Observation (also known as remote sensing) is the only feasible means for providing this range of perspectives, but our ability to collect data across all necessary scales is currently limited by inherent tradeoffs between the extent, duration, frequency, and resolution of observation. This suggests the possibility that there may be important, but currently unknown, phenomena that exist within our observational blind spots. Some of this blindness is imposed by physics (there are only so many photons reflected from the Earth, and these are proportional to wavelength), but many are due to engineering or economic constraints (some sensors are too expensive to use more than once or over a large area). These latter hurdles are falling, however, as new “big data” analytical techniques emerge, and combine with increasingly available, high quality, low-cost data made possible by a host of new innovations, including cheap satellites, unmanned aerial systems, inexpensive cellphone enabled field sensors, and the availability of a large pool of internet-enabled workers who can interpret these data in ways that computers cannot. By harnessing these new developments, geographers can make breakthroughs in understanding Earth System dynamics, while answering fundamental but unresolved questions.
This course is a skills-based follow-on to GEOG 391-Innovation in Earth Observation, a seminar that reviews the key limitations facing Earth Observation (EO), the recent developments that are challenging these limitations, what limitations remain, and what new challenges are being posed by EO advances. In this course, students will work, within the broader context of several active research projects, on developing and applying several specific EO methods that were reviewed in GEOG391.
Prerequisites: By instructor permission, or successful completion of GEOG 391 - Innovation in Earth Observation
GEOG 391 - Innovation in Earth Observation (Spring 2018)
Understanding the Earth System depends on observations of socioeconomic and environmental processes collected across multiple spatial and temporal scales, many of which cannot be addressed by existing Earth Observation (EO, or remote sensing) systems because of inherent tradeoffs between the extent, duration, frequency, and resolution of observation. In the past few years these obstacles have started to fall as new methods and technologies are introduced. This seminar will survey the key recent advances in EO, and their associated applications. A prerequisite for Geography and IDCE graduate students taking New Methods for Observing Our Changing World. Open to graduate students; advanced undergraduates may ask permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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GEOG 388 - Development Policy
A research seminar for students with some background in development studies. After an introduction on policy and policy-making institutions, the seminar critically examines recent tendencies in development policy, particularly the policies advocated by the World Bank, IMF and WTO. The course also looks at alternative development. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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GEOG 389 - Conservation GIS
Although human induced changes on the Earth have been occurring for thousands of years, the current magnitude, rate and spatial scale of these changes are unprecedented. With the beginning of industrialization in the 1800’s we entered a new epoch - the Anthropocene- in which humans are the main driving force of environmental change. Land cover change, overhunting and climate change are the main drivers of worldwide species extinctions, which are currently 1000 times the background extinction rate. The Conservation GIS seminar will focus on technological developments related to the application of GIS and Remote Sensing (RS) in conservation assessments, planning and management, through the review of literature and case studies. Open to graduate students; advanced undergraduates may ask permission.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 /IDCE 310 (Introduction to GIS), GEOG 293 /GEOG 383 (Introduction to Remote Sensing), ID 296 /IDCE 388 (Advanced Vector GIS)
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually, Fall Module A
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GEOG 391 - Innovations in Earth Observations
Understanding the Earth System depends on observations of socioeconomic and environmental processes collected across multiple spatial and temporal scales, many of which cannot be addressed by existing Earth Observation (EO, or remote sensing) systems because of inherent tradeoffs between the extent, duration, frequency, and resolution of observation. In the past few years these obstacles have started to fall as new methods and technologies are introduced. This seminar will survey the key recent advances in EO, and their associated applications. A prerequisite for Geography and IDCE graduate students taking New Methods for Observing Our Changing World. Open to graduate students; advanced undergraduates may ask permission.
Prerequisites: GEOG 383 must be completed before signing up for this course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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GEOG 392 - Remote Sensing of Global Environmental Change
Human and natural forces are profoundly altering earth’s surface and function. This graduate-level seminar investigates how satellite remote sensing is being used to monitor and understand these changes, thus addressing many of the frontier challenges in earth system science today. Specific topics will include desertification, loss of snow and ice cover, forest disturbances, fire detection, famine early warning, boreal forest migration, carbon cycle assessments, trends in hurricane intensity, coral crises, and climate variability and change. Students will read and introduce primary and popular literatures, critically evaluate specific remote sensing applications, facilitate discussions, and debate interpretations and conclusions. Open to doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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GEOG 394 - Dissertation Writing
This is a variable unit, graduate course for students engaged in writing a Ph.D. Dissertation.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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GEOG 397 - Advanced Raster GIS
This course builds on Introduction to GIS by delving deeper into raster GIS. Topics include time-series analysis, uncertainty assessment, multi-objective decision making, land-change modeling, and spatial statistics. Concepts in lectures are illustrated using the Idrisi software. Final project is required. This is a prerequisite for the fifth year Masters program in GIS and is a requirement for the GISDE masters program. This is a prerequisite for the accelerated degree program (MS GIS) and is a requirement for the GISDE masters program.
Prerequisites: GEOG 190 /GEOG 390 /IDCE 310 - Intro to Geographic Information Science or permission of instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every spring
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GEOG 398 - Internship
Academic experience taking place in the field with an opportunity to earn university credit. For doctoral and masters students.
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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GEOG 399 - Directed Study
Directed readings, discussion, and research supervision designed for doctoral students and some qdvanced qualified masters students. Permission from instructor is required for registration
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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GEOG 1020 - Weather and Climate
This course focuses on understanding controls of weather, including insolation, evaporation, wind, and topography as well as the climates that result, and how they may influence human activities. Students are also introduced to fundamentals of scientific inquiry and knowledge with exposure to observational methods, data analysis, and forecasting.
Course Designation/Attribute: SP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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