Seminar in Political Geography: Rethinking Geopolitical Traditions

In this course we will explore varying perspectives on the relationship between geographic inquiry and political organization. We will begin by considering the rise of “geopolitics” in the late 19th century. At this point, political communities were increasingly identified with specific geographic spaces, and “nation-states” competed with one another in what they perceived to be a zero-sum world of finite geographic space. This thinking culminated in Nazi expansionism during the Second World War. This view all but disappeared from public discourse following the war. Beginning in the 1980s, a variety of new geopolitical approaches emerged that offer more nuanced, geographically-informed analyses of power relations between States. We will finish the course with case studies of contemporary geopolitical approaches. We will employ a critical perspective based on post-structuralist theories of representation. (Open to seniors only; others by waiver).