GEOG 386 - Special Topics

SPRING 2022 SEC 01 TOPIC: WHAT & HOW TO REMEMBER: 100 YEARS OF GEOGRAPHY AT CLARK –The Graduate School of Geography marked its 100-year anniversary in Fall, 2021. In Fall 2022, the School will engage in a more formal set of events to mark this centennial. But what should we remember of these 100 years? How should we mark them? The Graduate School of Geography (GSG) at Clark is renowned many things, both today and over its century of existence. For example, it is known for having granted more PhD degrees than any other department in the country, a significant number of them to women. It is also associated with the racist theory of environmental determinism from the early 20th century. It has had five of its faculty members elected to the National Academy of Sciences. What do these facts reveal, and what do they hide or ignore? In this class, we will research some of the history of the department, and identify ways to celebrate its history, acknowledge its gaps and weaknesses, and mark its present trajectory. Students will work in teams to develop materials and programming for the Fall celebration events, developing and refining their skills in archival and interview research, web and graphic presentations, and writing.

SPRING 2022 SEC 02 TOPIC: ENERGY GEOGRAPHIES Energy policy is climate policy:  we cannot hope to address the climate crisis unless we can understand how our energy systems evolved and function, and plan and enact transitions to profoundly different energy systems. Doing both requires us to look with fresh eyes at nearly every aspect, at every scale, of the geographies we create and inhabit. This seminar will examine the rapidly changing geographies of energy production, distribution, and consumption, with particular attention to their roles in larger patterns of political, economic, and cultural development and change. In particular, we will examine the development and distinctive characteristics of fossil fuel capitalism; the political and economic implications and potential of transitions to renewable energy systems; the geopolitics of energy systems and transitions; the creation and effects of landscapes built around particular energy systems; and the relationships between energy systems and social identities. We will pay particular attention to the question of whether and how transitions towards renewable, low or net-zero carbon energy systems might contribute to movement towards a more just and equitable society - what has sometimes been termed a “just transition.”

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: RACE AND SPECULATION-Drawing from a range of critical perspectives-anti- and post-colonial, feminist, black, and otherwise radical-we seek to explore two primary questions. The first: how does (capitalist) speculation create architectures of difference (specifically “racial-sexual hierarchies”)? The second: how has speculative thought both opened up ways of understanding human life that go beyond race, and offered ways to imagine more livable worlds?

 

Anticipated Terms Offered: fall & spring