Cultural Geography

What do landscapes mean? How are places created and invested with significance? Why do people struggle to control public and private space? This course examines these and similar questions. Its main goals are to open students' eyes to the wealth of meanings embodied in the built environment and our metaphorical understandings of landscape, place, space, and geographical identity, and to teach skills for interpreting and representing those meanings. Lectures, course readings, and small-group projects will draw on social theory and empirical approaches, with a regional emphasis on North America. 3 hrs. lect.