Space,
Place and Identity
GEO 6473, Spring 2015
Class Location: SIPA 503 Time: 2:00 -
4:45PM, Tuesday
Seminar Facilitator: Ben Smith Email: bsmith@fiu.edu
Office: SIPA 305 Office Phone: 348-2074
Office Hours: Tuesday, 9:30-11:00 (or
before and after class)
Teaching Homepage: http://faculty.fiu.edu/~bsmith/teaching.htm
Readings: http://blackboard.fiu.com
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. While I
try to put the readings in context every week, it is not my job to
lecture. My role is as a facilitator for
discussion and getting your questions answered. While I don’t like to (and thankfully,
normally don’t have to), I will start calling on people with questions if the
discussion starts to ebb, so be prepared with something to say.
Using Blackboard
In case this is the first time
you have used Blackboard:
1. Go to http://fiu.blackboard.com
2. Use your FIU email ID and password to login. Note: if your usual ID doesn’t work, ask me. I will see which one the course shows you as using.
3. Click on this course
4. First thing you need to do is go to the left-hand column and click on Content. That is where all the readings are hiding
5. Next, click on Discussion Board. You will see Boards for each week
a. For Week 1, there is a forum called “Introduce Yourself”. Follow the instructions there to make a bio post. Everyone please post their bios using the “Create Thread,” not by replying to each other’s posts.
Weekly Questions and Thought Pieces
By 10 AM Tuesday morning, you will need to login and click on the link for this course. Find the current week.
In the “Discussion” forum, you need to put a single post that includes two things:
1. A 600-900 word “thought piece” which touches on ALL the assigned readings for the week (more on this below).
2. Two questions for discussion in class. These questions can be points you were unclear on, or perhaps something you think would get a cracking good discussion going.
To make this post, hit the “Create Thread” button. In the “Subject” box, please type your name. In the message box, please copy both your thought piece and questions. You can type directly into the box, but I would suggest using another program like Word to type your response and questions first, and then simply copy the text into the message box.
A couple of DO NOTs
1.
DO NOT make your
initial post as a reply to someone else’s post.
Hit the “Add
a new discussion topic” button to make your first post. However, you are of course free to reply to
each other’s posts if you want (although it is not required).
2.
DO NOT include your thought piece and questions as an
attachment. It just takes everyone more
time to look at yours if you do that.
Once 10 AM has passed, you should take time (provided you have it) to read over each others’ posts, so we are ready to discuss.
This writing and sharing is probably the single most beneficial part of the class – it allows you to collect your own thoughts and learn from the thoughts of your fellow students.
A Little Bit More Detail About Weekly Thought Pieces…
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 a single 600-900 word commentary each week, focusing on all 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.). It must also contain some original thoughts, analysis 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. These thoughts don’t have to be incredibly refined – they do have to be there.
Again, to repeat, I only want one
600-900 word
commentary from you each week. The exact
format is up to you and whatever works best for you is fine(e.g.
one long flowing essay, more distinct sections for each reading, following by a
paragraph that makes connections and analysis, etc). However, that one
commentary must address all the readings, while also showing some original
thoughts.
I expect them to be ready by noon for each 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. Continually sub-par work will be rewarded as such – and apparent to all your hard-working peers.
Each week, you will receive “3” for doing the assignment; a “2” if it is turned in late but done correctly, a “1“ if it is turned in, but showed lack of effort; or 0 if it is not turned in.
Additionally, once (and only once)
during the semester, you are allowed to pass on a week’s readings (if you are
going to conference, or out of town, or are sick). To use your pass, you still have to make a new
post in the forum, but just write “Pass” in the message box. This will be scored as a “2.5”.
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 in a single paper. 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, analysis and/or 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 situated 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 given week. Or
maybe you have made some surprising connections 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 your 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 theory in your
discipline.
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, March 31.
It must be typed, printed and stapled, and handed to me during that
day’s meeting. The other two must be
handed in at the beginning of class on Tuesday, April 26. 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; and Kitchin, Rob. Key Thinkers on Space and Place (Second Edition). Sage Publications Ltd. 2010. – This should be handy for you to contextualize the work of some of the big names we read this semester.
The rest of the readings I am distributing to you online.
Early Readings Schedule
(will be updated ):
Week 1: January 13 – Introductions
Week 2: January 20 – Imaginative Geographies
1. Edward Said. “Introduction” and “Imaginative Geography and Its Representations: Orientalizing the Oriental” Orientalism. Vintage, 1979. 1-28 and 49-73
2.
Derek Gregory. “Architectures of Enmity” and “‘Civilization’
and ‘Barbarism’” The Colonial Present:
3. 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
4.
Jeffrey Sasha Davis. “Representing Place: ‘Deserted
Isles’ and the Reproduction of
5. “Edward Said” and “Derek Gregory” in Key Thinkers…
Week 3: January 27 – Making Others/Making Us: 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. 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
4.
Anna Secor. “Between longing and despair: state, space,
and subjectivity in
5.
Last
Reading TBD
6.
“Benedict
Anderson” in Key Thinkers…
Week 4: February 3 – “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. Latour, Bruno. “Mixing Humans and Non-Humans Together: The Sociology of a Door Closer.” Social Problems. Vol. 35.3 (1988): 298-310.
5.
Donald Mitchell. “There's No Such Thing as Culture: Towards a Reconceptualization
of the Idea of Culture in Geography.” Transactions
of the
6.
Ian Cook and
Michelle Harrison. “Cross Over Food: Re-materializing
Postcolonial Geographies.” Transactions of the
7. “Homi K. Bhabha” and “Gayarti Chakravorty Spviak” in Key Thinkers…
Week 5: February 10 – 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.
Gill Valentine. “(Hetero)Sexing
Space: Lesbian Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces.” Space,
Gender, Knowledge: Feminist
5. Last Reading TBD
6. “Judith Butler” and “Donna Haraway” in Key Thinkers in Space and Place
Week 6: February 17 – Thoughts on Space
1. Michel
Foucault “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Press, 1995. 195-228
2.
Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari “Introduction: Rhizome” and “The Smooth and the Striated” in
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
3.
Sallie Marston, John Paul Jones, Keith Woodward
“Human geography without scale” Transactions
of the Institute of British Geographers 30 (2005): 416–432
4. John-David Dewsbury “Witnessing space: `knowledge without contemplation'” Environment and Planning A 35 (2003): 1907-1932
5. Richard Schein “The Place of Landscape: A Conceptual
Framework for Interpreting an American Scene” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87.4 (1997): 660-680
6. “Michel Foucault” and “Gilles Deleuze” in Key
Thinkers…
Week 7: February 24 – Spaces of Economic Diversity
1.
Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff. “A Marxian Theory of
Class” from Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy.
2. David Harvey “Crisis in the Space Economy of
Capitalism: The Dialectics of Imperialism” in The Limits to Capital.
3. 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.
4. Melissa Wright. “Asian spies, American Motors, and Speculations on the Space-time of Value.” Environment and Planning A. 33.12 (2001): 2175-2188.
5. Daniel Miller. “Making Love in Supermarkets.” The Cultural Economy Reader. Eds. Amin and Thrift. Blackwell. 2004. 251-265.
6. “David Harvey” in Key Thinkers…
Week 8: March 3 – 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. Reading TBD
6.
“Arturo Escobar” in Key Thinkers…
Week 9:
March 10 – Spring Break (BUT MAYBE THINK ABOUT THE WEEK 15
READINGS AND RESPONSE)
Week 10: March 17 – State Space 2: Multiple Scales of the State and Politics
1.
Gearoid O Tuathail.
“Geopolitics” and “Critical Geopolitics” Critical Geopolitics.
2.
Giorgio Agamben. “The State of
3.
Alison Mountz “Human Smuggling, the
Transnational Imaginary, and Everyday Geographies of the Nation-State” Antipode 35.3 (2003): 622-644.
4. Jason
Dittmer. “Captain
5.
“Gearoid O Tuathail” in Key
Thinkers…
Week 11: March 24 – Social Natures
1. Bruce Williams Braun. “Buried
Epistemologies: The Politics of Nature in (Post)Colonial
2. James C. Scott “Nature and Space” in Seeing Like a State: How Certain schemes to
Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.
3. Kay Anderson. “Culture and Nature at the
4. Latour, Bruno “Circulating Reference: Sampling Soil in the Amazon Rainforest” Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard. 1999. 24-79.
5. Paul Robbins and Julie Sharp. “Producing and Consuming Chemicals: The Moral Economy of the American Lawn.” Economic Geography. 79.4 (2003): 435-451
Week 12: March 31 – Theorizing Geographies of Globalization First Critical Essay Due
1.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. Reading TBD
2. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri “Preface” and “World Order” in Empire. Harvard University Press. 2000. xi-22.
3. John Law “And if the global were small and noncoherent? Method, complexity, and the baroque” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22.1 (2004): 13-26
4.
Susan Roberts, Anna Secor,
Matthew Sparke “Neoliberal Geopolitics” Antipode
35.5 (2003): 886-897
5. Timothy Mitchell “McJihad: Islam in U.S. Global Order” Social Text 20.4 (2002): 1-18.
Week 13: April 7 – For Space AND FIRST PRESENTATIONS
1. Doreen Massey. For Space. Sage Publications, Ltd. 2005.
2. “Doreen Massey” in Key Thinkers…
Week
14: April 14 – Second
Presentations
Week 15: April 21 – NO CLASS MEETING DUE TO AAG, BUT TURN IN THOUGHT PIECE
Readings:
1. 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.
2. Cindi Katz. “Playing the Field: Questions of Fieldwork in Geography” Professional Geographer. 46.1 (1994): 67-72.
3.
Dydia Delyser. ““Do you
really live here? Thoughts on Insider Research.”” The
Geographical Review. 91. 1-2(2001):
441-453.
4.
Karen E. Till “Returning to Home and the Field” The Geographical Review. 91.1-2(2001): 46-56.
5.
“Bruno Latour” in Key Thinkers…
Week 16: April 26 (Finals Week) – Remainder of Presentations AND Final Essays
Due (2:15-4:15)