Landscape and Memory

In this course we will focus on the intimate relationship between human-made landscapes and nationalism, examining them 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. This course is not open to students who have taken GEOG 0415.