GEOG 286 - Special Topics

FALL 2021  SEC. 1: 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.

SEC. 2: HYDROCLIMATOLOGY-This course is a general introduction to climatology and the interaction between earth’s climate and the hydrologic cycle. We will emphasize the essential controls of weather and climate, patterns and dynamics of the global climate (including insolation, temperature, evapotranspiration, precipitation, and atmospheric circulation), and the drivers of climate and hydrologic change. We will examine large-scale modes of climate variability (such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation), as well as hydroclimate extremes (droughts, floods). Finally, the course will have a focus on developing a deeper understanding of how climate data are collected, analyzed, and disseminated, and how models have become important tools to improve our understanding of these systems.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring