Seminar in Political Geography: Landscape and Memory: Geographies of National Identity

This course focuses on the intimate relationship between human-made landscapes and nationalism. It examines both the built landscape and nationalism as twin narratives. Landscapes tell the story of the nation: they reflect what the nation has chosen to remember of its unique past and they also affect the nationalism that develops in a specific territory. With examples from the Western China, Poland, Germany, Israel, and the US, we will illustrate how the human-made landscape serves as important physical and cultural crucible in which people construct ideas, memories, and icons that become an important part of a nation's memory and sense of identity. The relationship between peoples and their physical and social environments will be studied both within the context of time and space in order to help us understand the cultural processes that have been most responsible for the development of nations in the modern era. (Open to seniors only; others by waiver) 3 hrs. seminar