Space, Place and
Identity
GEO 6473, Fall 2007
Class Location: HLS 125 Time:
2:00-4:45 p.m. Monday
Seminar
Facilitator: Ben
Smith
Email: bsmith@fiu.edu
Office:
DM 437B Office Phone: 348-2074
Office
Hours: Monday & Wednesday 11:15 -11:45; Wednesday 2:00-5:00 or by
appointment
Teaching
Homepage: http://www.fiu.edu/~bsmith/teaching.htm
So you want to learn about
Star Trek, coming in second in horse racing, and government issued photo cards?
To make this a good seminar experience for everyone, you will have to 1) read all the required reading, every week, even if it is lengthy/difficult and 2) come prepared and ready to our weekly meetings so that we all can learn from each other. To make sure you reap maximum reward out of this reading and sharing, you need to 3) write about it.
To provide the incentive to do all this, I have to assign grades. Grades in the seminar will be broken down in the following manner:
Seminar attendance participation 25%
Weekly questions for discussion 5%
Weekly thought pieces 20%
Seminar Attendance & Participation
First off, to get the most out of the
seminar, you have to be there, every week, on time. The only valid excuses are if you have a
medically validated illness or you are presenting at an academic conference. Or, if the campus is destroyed by a
hurricane. Not feeling like it, having
other things to do, traffic and work are not excuses.
But showing up is only a fraction of
it. You also have be alert and ready to
participate. I am not going to lecture
much at all – my role is facilitator for all of us to have a discussion. That being said, I will be using something
Neumann and Hollander call a “modified Socratic method.” This basically means I will call on people
(especially if discussion is dying down) to answer questions about the
text(s). And, as Hollander beautifully
put it: “Continued failure to adequately respond to these questions, that is,
to demonstrate that you have read and wrestled with the assigned texts, will
lower your participation grade.”
Weekly Questions for Discussion
At the beginning of each class session, you will hand into to me two typed and printed questions from the reading. These questions can be points you were unclear on, or perhaps something you think would get a cracking good discussion going.
Weekly Thought Pieces (Edited
for clarity)
To make sure you have thoughts to share each week, and also have some notes available as you prepare for qualifying exams and thesis writing, each of you are to write one single 500-750 word commentary each week, focusing on the assigned readings. A commentary should give a brief informal abstract of EACH AND EVERY ONE of the readings (with the exception of the Key Thinkers.. readings, which are already summaries) assigned for the week (a few sentences on what it is about, what the author argued, what it speaks to, etc.), plus some thoughts and/or criticisms on whatever you found striking in the readings: maybe how they connected together (or disagreed), or maybe a way a particular theory or method was used, or maybe a novel interpretation, etc.
You have to turn in your thought
pieces to me in printed and typed form at the start of every class
session. I am not expecting you to turn
out The Sublime Object of Ideology,
but I do expect you try your best to be grammatically correct, analytically
bold and to not just babble on with no structure. Also, do not try to trick me
with big margins or large font – I was trained at a journalism school and can
spot funky layouts a mile away.
Continually sub-par work will be rewarded as such.
Critical Essays
Because the various weeks’ readings all focus on
issues of space, place and identity, but do so in fairly diverse contexts, I
will not make you go through the whiplash-inducing process of connecting them
all together. Instead, what I am asking
for are three 1750-2000 word essays, the best of which will be presented to the
group at the end of the seminar.[1] Ideally they will be expansions of the
“thoughts/criticisms on whatever you found striking in the reading” from some
of your weekly summaries, and not merely abstracting once again what the
articles were about. In other words,
this is your chance for bold critical thinking. And by critical thinking, I don’t mean just
looking at an article and declaring “It Stinks.” It means that you engage the readings,
appreciating the context in which they were written and being humbly aware of
the context from which you, as a situation reader, approach the readings. This is a chance to push your boundaries as a
thinker and writer.
As for how to structure the essays, I hope you vary
the approaches you take in the papers.
1. One approach is to vary the scale of your
analysis. For example, if one particular
passage or sub-section really grabs you, you can write an in-depth analysis of
it. Maybe it will be one paper, or a few
of the papers from a giving week. Or
maybe you have made some surprising across papers from different weeks.
2. Another approach is to vary the focus of the essay –
for example (and please don’t limit yourselves to these), one time discuss what
type of intellectual inquiry a group of readings make possible and what they
ignore, another time discuss how theory is translated into empirically enquiry,
or maybe how those people working as professionals or activists might be able
to apply lessons from the readings to transform society.
3. Yet another approach – and one I hope you all take in
one of the essays – is to espouse on how some of the readings might enrich research
you hope to undertake, or – if you don’t yet have a clue what you want to
research – how these readings inform, or maybe transform IR theory.
Basically, I don’t want to see the same paper from you
three times, just focusing on different articles.
I want to see a much higher level of polish on these
in terms of structure, grammar, and analysis than in the weekly thought
pieces. Papers that score well will
show rigorous, internally consistent thought that engages the readings in their
context. Please note: these are not
research papers, these are analysis papers.
You do not need to collect a bunch of outside sources.
To prevent you from leaving all three thought papers
until the last minute (and to get some feedback from me), I will make the first
one due on or before Tuesday, November 15 (which is the day after Veterans
Day). It must be typed, printed and
stapled, and put in the letter tray next to my office door. The other two must be handed in at the
beginning of class on Monday, Dec. 11.
Late papers will lose points rapidly and I don’t do incompletes.
Also, so everyone in the seminar knows what you are
thinking, you are going to choose your best paper to present in class. This will be done during the last two
sessions of the seminar. This paper
will be weighted slightly higher than your other two.
Required
- Massey, Doreen. For Space. Sage Publications, Ltd. 2005. – This is a good overview of space, place and identity written by one of the most recognized authors on the subject.
- Hubbard, Phil; Kitchin, Rob; and Valentine, Gill. Key Thinkers on Space and Place. Sage Publications Ltd. 2004. – This should be handy for you to contextualize the work of some of the big names we read this semester.
Readings Schedule (subject to hurricane
and instructor initiated changes):
Week 1:
August 27 – Introductions
Week 2: September 3 – Labor Day, No Class.
Start
Week
3: September 10 – Introduction to Space,
Place and Identity
1.
Doreen Massey. For
Space. Sage Publications, Ltd. 2005.
2.
Nicholas Clifford, Matthew Sparke and Doreen Massey.
Exchange on For Space from Progress in Human Geography 31.3 (2007):
389-405
3.
“Doreen Massey” in Key
Thinkers…
Week
4: September 17 – Imaginative
Geographies
1.
Edward Said. “Introduction” and “Imaginative Geography
and Its Representations: Orientalizing the Oriental” Orientalism. Vintage, 1979. 1-28 and 49-73
2.
Michael Heffernan. ``A Dream as Frail as Those of
Ancient Time'': The In-credible Geographies of Timbuctoo” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19.2 (2001): 203-225
3.
Derek Gregory. “Architectures of Enmity” and “‘Civilization’ and ‘Barbarism’” The Colonial Present:
4.
Trevor J. Barnes and Matthew Farish. “Between Regions: Science, Militarism, and
American Geography from World War to Cold War” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96.4 (2006):
807–826.
5.
Jeffrey Sasha Davis. “Representing Place: ‘Deserted
Isles’ and the Reproduction of
6. “Edward
Said” “Derek Gregory” and “Trevor Barnes” in Key Thinkers…
Week
5: September 24 – Making Others: Constructions
of Nationalism and Race
1.
Benedict Anderson. “Introduction” “Cultural Roots” and
“The Origins of National Consciousness” Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Verso, 1991. 1-46.
2.
Anne McClintock. “No Longer in a Future Heaven:
Nationalism, Gender and Race” in Imperial
Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. Routledge,1995. 353-389.
3.
Jamie Winders. “Changing Politics of Race and Region: Latino
Migration to the
4.
Joshua Hagen. “The Most German of Towns: Creating an
Ideal Nazi Community in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.” Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, 94.1 (2004): 207–227
5.
Eric Olund. “Cosmopolitanism’s Collateral Damage: The
State-organized Racial Violence of World War I and the War on Terror.” Violent Geographies: Fear,
Terror, and Political Violence. Eds. Gregory and
Pred. Blackwell. 2006
6.
“Benedict Anderson” in Key Thinkers…
Week
6: October 1 – “Culture” and
Postcoloniality
1.
Gayarti Chakravorty Spviak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (Abridged Version)
The Postcolonial Studies Reader. Eds. Ashcroft,
2.
Homi K. Bhabha. “Introductions: Locations of Culture”
and “The commitment to theory” The
Location of Culture. Routledge,
1994. 1-39
3.
Uma Narayan.
“Cross-Cultural Connections, Border-Crossings, and ‘Death by Culture’:
Thinking About Dowry Murders in
4.
Donald Mitchell. “There's No Such Thing as Culture: Towards a Reconceptualization of the
Idea of Culture in Geography.” Transactions
of the
5.
Ian Cook and
Michelle Harrison. “Cross Over Food: Re-materializing Postcolonial Geographies.” Transactions of the
6.
“Homi K. Bhabha”
and “Gayarti Chakravorty Spviak” in Key
Thinkers…
Week
7: October 8 – Gender, Sexuality, and
Space
1.
Judith Butler.
“Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions” and “Conclusion: From
Parody to Politics” Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
Routledge, 1999. 163-190.
2.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist
Scholarship and Colonial Discoures” in Dangerous
Liaisons: Gender, Nation & Postcolonial Perspectives.
3.
Donna Haraway. Excerpts from “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege
of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies. 14.3 (1988): 575-599.
4.
Rose, Gillian.
“Looking at Landscape: The Uneasy Pleasures of Power” in Feminism and Geography: the limits of
geographical knowledge.
5.
Gill Valentine. “(Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian
Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces.” Space,
Gender, Knowledge: Feminist
6.
Linda
McDowell. “Men, Management and Multiple Masculinities in Organisations” Geoforum. 32.2 (2001): 181-198.
7.
“Gillian Rose”
“Judith
Week
8: October 15 – Spaces of Economic
Diversity
1.
David Harvey. “The Spatial Fix” Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography. Routledge, 2001. 284-312
2.
J.K. Gibson-Graham. “Strategies” The End of Capitalism (as we knew it): A Feminist Critique of Political
Economy. Blackwell, 1996. 1-23.
3.
Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift. “Introduction” The Cultural Economy Reader. Eds. Amin
and Thrift. Blackwell. 2004. x-xxx.
4.
Andrew Leyshon, et al.
“Towards an Ecology of Retail Financial Services: Understanding the
Persistence of Door-to-door Credit and Insurance Providers.” Environment and Planning A. 36.4 (2004):
625-645.
5.
Melissa Wright. “Asian spies, American Motors, and
Speculations on the Space-time of Value.” Environment
and Planning A. 33.12 (2001): 2175-2188.
6.
Daniel Miller. “Making Love in Supermarkets.” The Cultural Economy Reader. Eds. Amin
and Thrift. Blackwell. 2004. 251-265.
7.
Jane
Pollard and Michael Samers. “Islamic Banking and Finance: Postcolonial
Political Economy and the Decentring of Economic Geography.” Transactions of the
8.
“David Harvey”
and “Nigel Thrift” in Key Thinkers
Week
9: October 22 – State Space 1:
Development and Neoliberalism
1.
Arturo Escobar.
“The Problematization of Poverty: The Tale of Three Worlds and
Development” in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the
2.
James Ferguson “Conceptual Apparatus: The
Constitution of the Object of “Development” –
3.
Nanda Shrestha “Becoming a Development
Category.” Power of Development. Ed.
Jonathan Crush. Routledge, 1995. 266-278
4.
Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell. “Neoliberalizing Space” Anitpode. 34.3 (2002): 380-404
5.
Anna Tsing. “Inside the Economy of Appearances” in Globalization. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. Duke University Press, 2001. 155-188.
6.
Katharyne Mitchell. “Educating the National Citizen in Neoliberal Times: From the
Multicultural Self to the Strategic Cosmopolitan” Transactions of the
7.
Joanne Sharp,
John Briggs, Hoda Yacoub and Nabila Hamed. “Doing Gender and Development: Understanding
Empowerment and Local Gender Relations” Transactions of the
8.
“Arturo Escobar”
in Key Thinkers…
Week
10: October 29 – State Space 2: Multiple Scales of the State
1. Michel
Foucault “Panopticism” in Discipline and
Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
Vintage Press, 1995. 195-228
2.
Giorgio Agamben.
“The State of
3.
Slavoj Zizek. “Fantasy as a Political Category: A Lacanian
Approach.” in The Zizek Reader. Eds. Wright and Wright. Blackwell, 1999.
87-102.
4.
Gearoid O Tuathail. “Geopolitics” and “Critical Geopolitics” Critical Geopolitcs.
5.
Alison Mountz “Human Smuggling, the Transnational Imaginary, and Everyday
Geographies of the Nation-State” Antipode 35.3 (2003):
622-644.
6. Jason
Dittmer. “Captain
7. Anna
Secor. ‘‘There Is an
8.
“Michel Foucault” and “Gearoid O Tuathail” in Key Thinkers…
Week
11: November 5 – Social Natures
1. Bruce Williams Braun. “Buried
Epistemologies: The Politics of Nature in (Post)Colonial
2. Erik
Swengedow “Scaled Geographies; Nature, Place and the Politics of Scale.” In Scale
& Geographic Inquiry: Nature Society and Method. Eds. Sheppard and McMaster. Blackwell, 2004.
129-153
3. Michael Watts. “Violent Environments: Petroleum
Conflict and the Political Ecology of Rule in the
4. James C. Scott “Nature and Space” in Seeing
Like a State: How Certain schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.
5. Kay Anderson. “Culture and Nature at the
6. Paul
Robbins and Julie Sharp. “Producing and
Consuming Chemicals: The Moral
Economy of the American Lawn.” Economic
Geography. 79.4 (2003): 435-451
7.
“Michael Watts” in Key Thinkers…
Week
12: November 12 – Veteran’s Day, No
Class
November 13 – First Critical Essay Due
Week 13: November 19 – The Field
No Class Meeting: Ben Smith at
PLEASE HAVE
1. Latour,
Bruno “Circulating Reference: Sampling Soil in the Amazon Rainforest” Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of
Science Studies. Harvard. 1999. 24-79.
2. Latour,
Bruno. “Mixing Humans and Non-Humans
Together: The Sociology of a Door Closer.”
Social Problems. Vol. 35.3 (1988): 298-310.
3. Akhil
Gupta and James Ferguson. “Discipline
and Practice: “The Field” as Site, Method, and Location in Anthropology.” Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science.
4. Cindi Katz. “Playing the Field: Questions of Fieldwork in
Geography” Professional Geographer.
46.1 (1994): 67-72.
5.
Dydia Delyser.
““Do you really live here? Thoughts on Insider Research.”” The
Geographical Review. 91. 1-2(2001):
441-453.
6.
Karen E. Till “Returning to Home and the Field” The Geographical Review. 91.1-2(2001): 46-56.
7.
“Bruno Latour” in Key Thinkers…
Week
14: November 26 – Theorizing Geographies of Globalization (& Discuss the
Field)
1.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. “Querying Globalization” The End of Capitalism (as we knew it): A
Feminist Critique of Political economy.
Blackwell, 1996. 120-147.
2.
Neil Smith “The Satanic Geographies of Globalization:
Uneven Development in the 1990’s” Public
Culture 10.1: 169-189
3.
Michael Hardt
and Antonio Negri “Preface” and “World Order” in Empire.
4.
Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari “Introduction: Rhizome” and “The Smooth and the Striated” in
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
5.
Leslie Sklair
“Introduction” and “Globalizing Class Theory” in The Transnational Capitalist Class. Blackwell, 2001. 1-33
6.
Timothy Mitchell “McJihad: Islam in
7.
“Manuel Castells” and “Gilles Deleuze” in Key Thinkers
Week 15: December 3 – Presentations
Week 16: December 10 – Presentations
December 11 – Other Two Critical Essays Due