Winter 02 course descriptions

[Richard Roth]

GEOGRAPHY      Winter    2002
Course Descriptions

REGISTRATION STARTS November 9

Geography 100
Intro to Geography
Mark Purcell
MWF 10:30 - 11:20  Plus TTh quiz sections
Introduces concepts, themes, and relationships central to human geography.
Intended for first year and second year students as an introduction to
economic, political, and cultural geographies. Key topics and theories
include: recent restructuring of the global economy, ideas of geopolitics,
nationalism, the cultural politics of landscape.

Geog 123
Intro Globalization
Matt Sparke
MWF 11:30 - 12:20, plus TTh quiz sections
Where does your food come from? Who makes your clothes? What does your
bank do with your money? Who are you connected to through your work? Why
was the 'Battle in Seattle' about more than just Seattle? How are people
networking and moving around the world in new ways? How do these networks
and movements change politics locally and globally? Why does increasing
global interconnectedness also seem to lead to greater division and
greater inequality? How are we all connected together, and who are "we"?
This course aims to help you start answering these sorts of questions by
examining globalization in all its diverse forms of worldwide
interconnection. Such interconnections include economic ties, political
ties, cultural ties, environmental ties and so on. These ties can be
analyzed independently, but they also need to be understood in terms of
how they operate in conjunction with one another to produce the overall
effect that has been given the single label globalization. When it is
talked about in this singular way, globalization often seems overpowering
and unstoppable. However, by learning about each set of ties in turn you
will be able to see globalization as something less monolithic, something
that is being contested and reworked, something that ties the world
together in a range of both constraining and empowering ways, something
that is constantly changing and something that therefore can also be
changed.

GEOG 230
Urbanization and Development: Geographies of Global Inequality
Vicky Lawson
MTWTh, 10:30 - 11:20, plus Fri quiz sections
Examines global to local interactions of economic, political, and social
forces shaping urbanization and development processes across the globe.
Provides an introduction to critical development studies, focusing on
Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Also examines debates over the causes and
geographic patterns of social inequality worldwide.

GEOG 258
Maps and GIS   Instructor TBA
MWF 1:00-2:20, plus one quiz section
Explores how people represent the world with maps and geographic
information systems (GIS). Trains students in map use for basic
navigation, urban management, and environmental analysis. Considers role
of spatial databases in commerce, decision-making, and analysis. Helps
map-readers better determine quality, usefulness, and representation of
information

GEOG 270
Consumption, Nature, and Globalization
Nayna Jhaveri
TTh 12:30 - 2:20, plus F quiz sections
Examines how growing environmental costs of consumption pose a great
challenge in the search for global sustainability, how they are the key
axis of ecological conflict between North and South. Explores how
consumption impacts nature, what drives consumption practices, the pattern
of regulatory responses by states, business, NGOs.

GEOG 277
Geography of Cities
Kim England
MTWF 11:30 - 12:20 plus Th quiz sections
Study of 1) systems of cities--their historical development, location,
distribution and  functions, and 2) their internal structure--the location
of activities within Emphasizes explanations of contemporary urban
patterns and problems-sprawl, housing, segregation and economic growth.

GEOG 302
Bill Beyers
The Pacific Northwest
MWF 8:30 - 9:20
Settlement pattern in the Pacific Northwest, emphasizing economic and
historical factors, including the location of resource-oriented
industries, policies regarding the use of public lands, and bases of the
development of major urban areas in the region. (Note: this is a 3-credit
course. However, student smay sign up for an additional 2 credits of Geog
499 if they wish to write an extra paper. See Rick Roth in Geography
Advising for registration details).


GEOG 308
Doug Jackson
Canada: A Geographic Interpretation
TTh  1:30 -  3:20
Introduces students to the complexity of modern Canada: its landscapes and
environment, population distribution, political structure, economic and
cultural activities.  Special emphasis is given to the role of regionalism
as a factor contributing to diversity and democratic dissent. A bilingual
country, Canadians admit to the growing importance of the aboriginal
peoples and their contribution to the vitality and justice of their state.
Students will be expected to write a significant term paper on an approved
topic.  Joint with SISCA 308

Geog 310
Mark Ellis
Immigrant America
MTWTh  10:30 - 11:20 plus Fri quiz sections
Examines U.S. immigration trends and policies from a geographic
perspective. Topics include where immigrants come from, where they settle
in the United States. immigrant employment enclaves, the effects of U.S.
immigration policy on immigrant settlement and employment patterns,
illegal immigration, citizenship, and barriers to immigrant success in the
United States

GEOG 326
Introduction to Geographic Research
Kam Wing Chan
MWF  1:00-2:20 plus labs
Introduction to research methods in geography. Emphasis is on developing
an understanding of basic concepts and reasoning, and command of some
practical skills. Students will also learn elementary analytical
techniques, identify a research question, and conduct a small project.
Examine approaches in geographic research, research design, data
collection techniques, sampling, basic descriptive and analytical
quantitative methods.  Each student is required to work on a mini-research
project and several assignments.  Students will also be introduced to a
spreadsheet software package to assist their work.

GEOG 336
Development and Challenge in China
Kam Wing Chan
TTh 10:30-12:20
Examines the geography of China, with a focus on the nation's development
in the last fifty years. The course first introduces China's physical
geography, history, and economic and political system. Focus on
geographical issues in China's development: agriculture, population,
industry and trade, and problems China faces in meeting its food demand
and challenges brought by the process of globalization. No prior
background knowledge of China is required.

Geog 367
Economic Uses of Geographic Information
J.W. Harrington
MW 2:30 - 4:20
Uses of area data and the geographic information systems (GISs) that
handle them in routing, marketing, service-are assessment, and site
location. Considers key economic-geography concepts, marketing approaches,
questions of data availability and suitability, and GIS. Prerequisite:
GEOG 360.

GEOG 380
Geographical Patterns of Health and Disease
Jonathan Mayer
TTh 4:30 -6:20
Geography of infectious and chronic diseases at local, national, and
international scales; environmental, cultural, and social explanations of
those variations; comparative aspects of health systems

GEOG 401
Culture, Capital, and the City
Banu Gokariksel
MW, 6:30--8:50
Examines current themes in social theory as they apply to the urban
landscape. Includes the interconnections of cultural and economic
processes and the spatial patternings of race, class, and gender in the
modern urban context

GEOG 425 w course
Qualitative Methodology in Geography
Lucy Jarosz TTh 12:30 - 2:20
Historical and philosophical overview of qualitative methodology as both
epistemology and as practice.  Discussions of research design, techniques,
analysis and write-up as well as questions of ethics, identity, power
relations and the politics of field research, researcher responsibility
and representation. Completing one aspect of a research project
(literature review, interviews, textual interpretation or analysis) is a
requirement for the course.

GEOG 439
Gender, Race, and the Geography of Employment
Mark Ellis
MW  2:30 - 4:20
Focuses on the geography of employment for men and women of different
racial and ethnic backgrounds in American cities. Presents evidence on
labor market inequality for different groups and explanations of these
differences. Emphasizes the importance of a spatial perspective in
understanding employment outcomes for women and minorities.

GEOG 461 W course
Urban Geographic Information Systems
Tim Nyerges
MWF 9:30 - 10:20 +labs either MW or TTu
Use of geographic information systems to investigate urban/regional
issues; focus on transportation, land-use and environmental issues.  GIS
data processing strategies. Problem definition for GIS processing. Data
collection, geocoding issues. Data structuring strategies. Prerequisite:
2.0 in GEOG 360; recommended: GEOG 277


GEOG 471
Methods of Resource Analysis
Craig ZumBrunnen
TTh 10:30 - 12:20
Economic and noneconomic criteria for resource analysis. Theory and
methods of linear models of natural resource analysis. Includes
materials-balance modeling, residuals management, constrained system
optimization approaches to water quality analysis, land-use patterns and
interregional energy use, and multiple objective planning techniques
applied to natural resource problems. Recommended: GEOG 370

GEOG 480 W course
Environmental Geography, Climate, and Health
Jonathan Mayer
MWF 11:30 - 12:50
Demonstrates and investigates how human-environment relations are
expressed in the context of health and disease. Local and global examples
emphasize the ways medical geography is situated at the intersection of
the social, physical, and biological sciences. Examines interactions
between individual health, public health, and social, biological, and
physical phenomena.

GEOG 532
Rural Development Seminar
Lucy Jarosz
Th 2:30 - 5:20
Through a series of theoretical and conceptual readings anchored by case
studies from sub-Saharan Africa, this seminar focuses upon the emergence
of "civil society" and "empowerment" as key components of contemporary
development ideology and practice.  We will grapple with the following
sorts of questions.  What does civil society mean to those employing the
term?  Is it yet another Western concept foisted upon poor, largely rural
countries in order to promote neolibral reform?  Or is it a harbinger of a
new paradigm for socially progressive and liberatory discursive practice
in rural development?  How is the term reworked, redefined, contested,
andlegitimated within the context of specific development geographies?

GEOG 541
Research Seminar: Feminist Geographies
Kim England
M 2:30 - 5:20
Through a series of theoretical and conceptual readings anchored by case
studies from sub-Saharan Africa, this seminar focuses upon the emergence
of "civil society" and "empowerment" as key components of contemporary
development ideology and practice.  We will grapple with the following
sorts of questions.  What does civil society mean to those employing the
term?  Is it yet another Western concept foisted upon poor, largely rural
countries in order to promote neolibral reform?  Or is it a harbinger of a
new paradigm for socially progressive and liberatory discursive practice
in rural development?  How is the term reworked, redefined, contested, and
legitimated within the context of specific development geographies?

GEOG 553
Advanced Topics in Cultural Geography
Katharyne Mitchell
Th 2:30 - 5:20
This seminar focuses on movement in the contemporary era.  Much of the
contemporary theoretical work on migration emphasizes what's been labeled
"transnational" movement-journeys back and forth over the borders and
lives lived in various kinds of social networks "across" borders.
Theorists are interested in the actual material movements of bodies and
capital and information across space, but also in some of the implications
of this movement for questions of identity and for the impact of this
movement in a period of global restructuring primarily through the lens of
citizenship.

GEOG 573
Urban Political Geography: Research Seminar
Michael Brown
WF  12:30 - 2:20
Covers both classic and contemporary theoretical debates and research on
the relation between power, place, and the local scale. Considers
conventional sites (e.g., the local state) as well as new forms and
locations of city politics (e.g., sexuality and the body).


GEOG 574
Research Seminar: Geography, Law, and Social Control
Steve Herbert
W 2:30 - 5:20
Explores relationship between the construction and enforcement of law and
the landscape of lived experience; reviews major approaches in socio-legal
analysis and seeks to augment these with insights from contemporary human
geography research; explores various ways in which geographical variance
shapes legal behavior.