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

The course focuses on the intimate relationship between human-made landscapes and nationalism. It examines both the built landscape and nationalism as twin narratives. The human-made 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 US, Poland, Germany, and Israel 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 intensify the nation's sense of identity. (Open to seniors only; others by waiver) 3 hrs. sem.