Catalogue 2020-2021 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Geography
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Faculty: See Earth Science and Geography Department
Major
Correlate Sequence in Geography
Geography: I. Introductory
Geography: II. Intermediate
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GEOG 202 - Public Policy and Human Environments
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 202 , ESCI 202 , ESSC 202 and URBS 202 ) This course combines the insights of the natural and social sciences to address a selected topic of global concern. Geographers bring spatial analysis of societal and political-ecological changes, while Earth Scientists contribute their knowledge of the diverse natural processes shaping the earth’s surface. Together, these distinctive but complementary fields contribute to comprehensive understandings of the physical limitations and potential, uses and misuses of the Earth’s natural resources.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 220 - Cartography: Spatial Data Visualization with GIS Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 220 ) Geographic information systems (GIS) give us the ability to display and analyze data, and thus give us broader perspectives on social and environmental processes and patterns. Map-making and communication with spatial data are therefore fundamental aspects of Geography. This course uses GIS to make thematic maps and to acquire and present spatial data in diverse ways. In addition, we explore the culture, politics, and technology of historical cartography, and we examine how maps have been used as rhetorical and political texts. Throughout the course, we focus on strategies for clear, efficient, and intentional communication through graphic presentation of data. Thus, the course integrates problems of design, esthetics, and communication with techniques for manipulating quantitative data. In the final project, students apply ideas to a topic of their individual interest. ArcGIS is used in labs for map production and data analysis. Mary Cunningham.
Prerequisite(s): One 100-level Geography or Earth Science course, or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the college requirement for quantitative reasoning.
Two 75-minute periods and one 2-hour lab.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 221 - Soils Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 221 ) Soils form an important interface between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. As such, they are critical to understanding the functioning of ecosystems. This course studies soil formation, and the physical and chemical properties of soils critical to the understanding of natural and constructed ecosystems. Field trips and laboratory work focus on the description and interpretation of local soils. Jeff Walker.
Prerequisite(s): One introductory course in Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science; or ENST 124 .
Two 75-minute periods; one 4-hour laboratory/field period.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 224 - GIS: Spatial Analysis Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 224 ) Geographic information systems (GIS) are increasingly important and widespread packages for manipulating and presenting spatial data. While this course uses ArcGIS, the same software as Cartography, the primary focus here is spatial analysis (calculating patterns and relationships), rather than map design for data visualization. We explore a variety of techniques for answering questions with spatial data, including overlay, map algebra (math using multiple input layers), hydrologic modeling, surface interpolation, and site selection. Issues of data collection through remote sensing and sampling are addressed. GIS involves a more rapid introduction to the software than Cartography does; it is useful to take both Cartography and GIS (preferably in that order) to gain a more complete understanding of spatial data analysis and manipulation. Mary Ann Cunningham.
Satisfies the college requirement for quantitative reasoning.
Two 75-minute periods; one 2-hour laboratory.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 226 - Remote Sensing
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 226 ) Many key environmental questions today are studied at least in part with remotely sensed data. Imagery from satellite sensors, such as LandSat, or airborne sensors, provide insights into questions regarding oil spills, sea ice extent, agricultural land uses, urban expansion, deforestation, forest health, weather, and many other phenomena. This 6-week course provides a short introduction to remotely sensed data, including principles of image capture, e.g., radiative energy, electromagnetic spectra, and spectral signatures, and basic approaches to image classification and interpretation. Using accessible image interpretation software, we practice different approaches for using imagery to address environmental questions. This course complements GIS, Cartography, and other courses concerned with mapping and land change analysis. It has no prerequisites, but willingness to explore new software and data is important.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 228 - Web Mapping: Advanced Approaches to Publishing
0.5 unit(s)
Web maps, map apps, story maps, and other emerging applications offer new opportunities to publicize and share spatial data. Other applications such as the Collector app and Open Street Map promote group sourcing of data. This half-unit course introduces several of these techniques and asks that students make and present several of their own online maps, using data sources of their choice. The main aim of this course is to gain further experience with GIS and to learn effective ways of communicating spatial data to an online audience. As a short course, it is less thorough than the standard GIS and Cartography courses, but it offers an opportunity to explore special topics that build on those classes. We use class time to learn and compare applications and to evaluate strategies and designs for web-based mapping. We also explore some of the broader implications of data publishing.
Prerequisite(s): GEOG 220 or GEOG 224 , or permission of the instructor.
First six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 230 - Geographic Research Methods
1 unit(s)
How do we develop clear research questions, and how do we know when we have the answer? Focusing on qualitative approaches, this course examines different methods for asking and answering questions about the world, which are essential skills in geography and other disciplines. Topics include formulation of a research question or hypothesis, research design, and data collection and analysis. We examine major research and methodological papers in the discipline, design an empirical research project, and carry out basic data analysis. Students who are considering writing a thesis or conducting other independent research and writing are encouraged to take this course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 231 - Geomorphology: Surface Processes and Evolution of Landforms
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 231 ) Quantitative study of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that create Earth’s many landforms. Topics include weathering and erosion, landsliding and debris flows, sediment transport by rivers and glaciers, the role of climate in landscape modification, and the use of landforms to document earthquake hazards. Lab exercises emphasize fundamental skills in geomorphologic analysis such as mapping, surveying, interpretation of aerial photography, and use of Geographic Information Systems software.
Prerequisite(s): ESCI 151 or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies college requirement for quantitative reasoning.
Two 75-minute periods; one 4-hour laboratory/field period. An overnight weekend field trip may be required.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 234 - Race, Space and Nature Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 234 and ENST 234 ) Ideas about “race” and “nature” are intimately bound up with the production of space. Historically, essentialist theories about racial difference served to legitimize and naturalize oppression, dispossession, and enslavement. Racism and white privilege have also long been present in how non-human natures are understood and managed in rural and urban environments, and have contributed to the uneven socio-spatial distribution of environmental harms. This course draws on political ecology, environmental justice, and theories of racial capitalism to apprehend and deconstruct the historical and contemporary relationships between race, space, and nature. Potential topics may include: connections between race, property, and land; the plantation as a socio-ecological phenomenon; environmental racism; Eurocentric ideologies of nature; and racialized exclusion and eviction in the creation of National Parks in North America and Africa. Ashley Fent.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 235 - Water
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 235 ) Sixty to seventy percent of Dutchess County residents depend on groundwater supplies to meet their daily needs. Industrial pollution and road salt have contaminated many of these supplies, spawning legal actions and requiring costly remediation. Ensuring adequate and safe groundwater supplies for humans and ecosystems requires extensive knowledge of the hydrologic cycle and of how contaminants may be introduced into water resources. We explore how rainfall and snowmelt infiltrate into soils and bedrock to become part of the groundwater system, learn what factors govern subsurface flow, and discuss the concept of well-head protection, which seeks to protect groundwater recharge areas from contamination. Using Vassar’s teaching well at the field station we perform a number of experiments to assess aquifer properties, water chemistry, and presence of microbial contaminants. Comfort with basic algebra and trigonometry is expected.
Prerequisite(s): ESCI 151 , ENST 124 , or permission of the instructor.
Satisfies the college requirement for quantitative reasoning.
Two 75-minute periods; one 4-hour laboratory/field period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 236 - The Making of Modern East Asia: Empires and Transnational Interactions
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 236 ) East Asia–the homeland of the oldest continuous civilization of the world–is now the most dynamic center in the world economy and an emerging power in global politics. Central to the global expansion of trade, production, and cultural exchange through the span of several millennia, the East Asian region provides a critical lens for us to understand the origin, transformation and future development of the global system. This course provides a multidisciplinary understanding of the common and contrasting experiences of East Asian countries as each struggled to come to terms with the western dominated expansion of global capitalism and the modernization process. The course incorporates a significant amount of visual imagery such as traditional painting and contemporary film, in addition to literature. Professors from Art History, Film, Chinese and Japanese literature and history will give guest lecture in the course, on special topics such as ancient Chinese and Japanese arts, East Asia intellectual history, Japanese war literature, post war American hegemony, and vampire films in Southeast Asia. Together, they illustrate the diverse and complex struggles of different parts of East Asia to construct their own modernities.
Prerequisite(s): At least one 100-level course in Geography or Asian Studies.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/201.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 238 - Environmental China: Nature, Culture, and Development Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 238 , ENST 238 and INTL 238 ) As environmental actions suffer setbacks in the United States, it becomes even more important to understand the dynamics in other nations. China has emerged as a leading player in the environmental field. China is not only the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases; it is also suffering from many acute environmental problems related to its air, water and soil, among others, all of which make China the world’s most important experimental site for environmental actions. How do the Chinese government and Chinese people view their environment problems? What are the geographical and historical conditions underlining the evolution of such problems? As the world oldest continuous civilization and the most populous nation, China has a deep history in dealing with its environment, thus has formulated ancient cultures and practices regarding nature, some of which have reemerged in the country’s headlong march into modernity. What can China teach the world? Employing a political-ecological approach, this course explores the roots of China’s environmental challenges as created by and mediated through historical, cultural, political, economic and social forces, both internal and external to the country, and especially instigated by the movements of global socialism and capitalism in the last one and a half centuries. It also examines some of the solutions that the Chinese government and the people are taking on. Lessons from China have profound implications for the future of our livable world. Yu Zhou.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 242 - Brazil in Crisis: Continuity and Change in Portuguese America Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 242 , INTL 242 , and LALS 242 ) Brazil, a giant of Latin America and the Global South, has long been known as the “land of the future.” Yet frustrating political-economic crises have repeatedly followed periods of rapid growth and social progress. Taking current crises as a point of departure, this course examines Brazil’s contemporary evolution in light of the country’s historical geography, the distinctive cultural and environmental features of Portuguese America, and the political-economic linkages with the world system. Specific topics for study include: the legacies of colonial Brazil; race relations, Afro-Brazilian culture, and ethnic identities; issues of gender, youth, violence, and poverty; processes of urban-industrial growth; regionalism and national integration; environmental devastation and sustainability; controversies surrounding the occupation of Amazonia; and long-run prospects for democracy and equitable development in Brazil. Brian Godfrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 246 - The U.S.-Mexico Border: Nation-State and Nature
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 246 ) Born in large part of violence, conquest and dispossession, the United States-Mexico border region has evolved over almost two centuries into a site of intense economic growth and trade, demographic expansion, ethno-cultural interaction, and political geographic conflict. The course focuses on these processes over space and time as they relate to capitalist production, state-making, and nation-building on both sides of the international divide. In doing so, the course considers the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as a region, one characterized by dynamic transboundary ties and myriad forms of socio-spatial difference.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 250 - Urban Geography: Space, Place, Environment Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 250 ) Now that most of the world’s population lives in urban areas, expanding city-regions pose a series of social, spatial and environmental problems. This course focuses on the making of urban spaces, places, and environments at a variety of geographical scales. We examine entrepreneurial urban branding, sense of place and place making, geographies of race and class, urbanization of nature, environmental and spatial justice, and urban risk and resilience in facing climate change. Concentrating on American urbanism, case studies include New York City, Poughkeepsie, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Students also research specific issues in cities of their own choice, such as land-use planning and public space, historic preservation, transit-oriented development, urban ecology and restoration, urban sustainability programs, and citizen movements for livable cities. Brian Godfrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 252 - Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 252 and INTL 252 ) The largest and fastest wave of urbanization in human history is now underway in the Global South—the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Most of the world’s urban population already resides here, where mega-cities now reach massive proportions. Despite widespread economic dynamism, high rates of urbanization and deprivation often coincide, so many of the 21st century’s greatest challenges will arise in the Global South. This course examines postcolonial urbanism, global-city and ordinary-city theories, informal settlements and slums, social and environmental justice, and urban design, planning, and governance. We study scholarly, journalistic, and film depictions of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in Latin America; Algiers and Lagos in Africa; Cairo and Istanbul in the Middle East; and Beijing and Mumbai in Asia.
Prerequisite(s): A previous Geography or Urban Studies course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 254 - Environmental Science in the Field
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 254 ) The environment consists of complex and often elegant interactions between various constituents so that an interdisciplinary approach is required to understand how human interactions may affect it. In this course, we study a variety of aspects of a specific environment by considering how biological, chemical, geological, and human factors interact. We observe these interactions first hand during a weeklong field trip. Some of the questions we may consider are: How does a coral polyp create an environment that not only suits its particular species, but also helps regulate the global climate? How has human development and associated water demands in the desert Southwest changed the landscape, fire ecology, and even estuary and fisheries’ health as far away as the Gulf of California? How have a variety of species (humans included) managed to survive on an island with the harsh environment of the exposed mid-ocean ridge of Iceland? The course is offered every other year, and topics vary with expertise of the faculty teaching the course.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 256 - Geographies of Food and Farming
1 unit(s)
Farming and food production connect us to the landscapes in which we live, and they shape the geographies of our communities. Increasingly, farming and food also connect us to processes of globalization. The world produces more food than ever before, yet factors such as centralization of production and competition from biofuels lead to food shortages in developing regions and continuing losses of rainforests from Brazil to Indonesia. One key strategy for understanding these connections is to examine the biogeographic patterns that shape food production. In this course, we focus first on the physical environmental factors (including water resources, climate patterns, and biodiversity) that characterize agricultural regions of North America. As part of this discussion, we consider ethical, political, and cultural aspects of food production. We then use these frameworks to examine global production and exchanges of food. We use case studies, such as land conversion in Brazil and Indonesia, to understand prominent debates about food and farming today.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 258 - Sustainable Landscapes: Bridging Place and Environment in Poughkeepsie
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 258 ) Geographers have long understood the relationship of aesthetic landscapes and place to include concepts of identity, control, and territory. Increasingly we consider landscape aesthetics in the context of sustainability and environmental quality. How do these contrasting sets of priorities meet in the process of landscape design and land use analysis? In this course we begin by examining regional and local histories of landscape design and land use planning and their relationship to concepts of place, territory, and identity. We consider landscape ecological approaches to marrying aesthetic, land use planning, and environmental priorities in landscapes. We investigate local issues such as watershed quality, native plantings, and storm water management in the context of local land use planning in order to consider creative ways to bridge these once-contrary approaches to understanding the landscapes we occupy and construct. We focus on projects and topics related to the greater Poughkeepsie area.
Prerequisite(s): One 100-level course in Geography.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 260 - Conservation of Natural Resources
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 260 ) Natural resources are perennially at the center of debates on sustainability, planning, land development, and environmental policy. The ways we conceptualize resources can be as important to understanding these issues as their actual distributions are. This course provides a geographic perspective on natural resource conservation, using local examples to provide deeper experience with resource debates. We focus particularly on forest resources: biodiversity, forest health, timber resources, forest policy, and the ways people have struggled to make a living in forested ecosystems. We discuss these issues on a global scale (such as tropical timber piracy and forest conversion), and we explore them locally in the Adirondacks of New York. This course requires that students spend October Break on a group study trip in the Adirondacks. Students must be willing to spend long, cold days outside, including some strenuous physical activity (unless special permission is arranged with the instructor).
Students wishing to register under Earth Science must have had at least one previous earth science course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 262 - Mapping Climate Change and its Impacts
1 unit(s)
Mapping and spatial modelling are increasingly important tools for visualizing and understanding geographic variations in climate change and its impacts. In this intensive course, we collaboratively explore some of the data and approaches involved in spatial analysis of climate change and impacts. Issues of concern might include topics such as crop growth, biodiversity, or environmental health. Because this is an exploratory course, students are expected to help lead the inquiry as we investigate applications of data and models. We focus first on the nature and use of spatial climate data; we then explore applications using GIS-based models of change implemented, for example, in ArcGIS Modelbuilder or Maxent. We use these approaches, together with relevant literature, to quantify impacts for a particular subject and region of concern.
Because student leadership is expected, students should plan to dedicate at least five additional hours to independent and/or small group work outside of scheduled meetings.
Prerequisite(s): GIS or Cartography or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods and one 2-hour lab.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: INT -
GEOG 266 - Population, Environment, and Sustainable Development Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 266 ) Concerns about human population are integral to debates about matters of political stability, socio-economic equity, ecological sustainability, and human wellbeing. This course engages these debates via an examination of environmental change, power and inequality, and technology and development. Case studies include: water supplies, fishing and agriculture and the production of foodstuffs. Being a geography course, it highlights human-nature relations, spatial distribution and difference, and the dynamic connections between places and regions. Joe Nevins.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 270 - Gender and Social Space
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 270 and WMST 270 ) This course explores the ways in which gender informs the spatial organization of daily life; the interrelation of gender and key spatial forms and practices such as the home, the city, the hotel, migration, shopping, community activism, and walking at night. It draws on feminist theoretical work from diverse fields such as geography, architecture, anthropology and urban studies not only to begin to map the gendered divisions of the social world but also to understand gender itself as a spatial practice.
Prerequisite(s): One of the following: URBS 100 , GEOG 102 , or WMST 130 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 272 - Geographies of Mass Violence Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Violence has been an integral part of the making of landscapes, places, and the world political map. This course examines theories of violence, explanations of why it happens where it does, and how mass violence has come to shape local, national, and international geographies. In doing so, it analyzes how violence becomes embedded in geographical space and informs social relations. The course draws upon various case studies, including incidents of mass violence in Rwanda, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the United States. Joe Nevins.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 274 - The Political Geography of Human Rights
1 unit(s)
Human rights have a deep history and varied geographical origins. This course examines the highly contested making and representation of human rights in regards to their content and emphases, and the various practices and institutions deployed in their name–with a focus on the post -1945 era. In doing so, the course interrogates human rights in relation to a variety of settings–from anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles to social movements championing racial and gender equality to humanitarian interventions. Throughout, the course seeks to analyze how these various human-rights-related endeavors flow from, produce, and challenge spatial inequality, places and geographical scales, and articulate with a diverse set of political geographical agendas.
Prerequisite(s): One 100-level Geography or Earth Science course, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 276 - Economic Geography: Spaces of Global Capitalism Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 276 ) We live in turbulent times. In the past decades, global capitalism has profoundly reorganized global space for production, distribution and consumption. Geography discipline, economic geography, in particular, is uniquely equipped to provide critical analysis of the spatial dynamics of the global economy. Differing from other disciplines concerning economics, economic geography studies the relationship between economics and space and place. Economic geographers argue that in all economic activities, accessibility, proximity and spatial agglomeration play essential roles in the location choice, organization and performance of economic units. Space, place, and mobility resulted in uneven development, which is deeply implicated features in the capitalist system in its emergence, development, and transformation.
Two areas of focus in this course are the globalization of the world economy and regional development under the first and third world contexts. We analyze the history of the emergence of the global the capitalist system, the commodification of nature, transformation of agriculture, the global spread of manufacturing, restructuring of transnational corporations and its regional impacts. Yu Zhou.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 286 - A People’s Geography of the Hudson Valley. Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course involves the production of an online, historical-geographical guide to sites across the Hudson Valley. It employs an approach that is explicitly “from below,” or from the socio-economic, political, ideological and geographic margins, as well as a perspective of “the people” (a dynamic category). A people’s perspective privileges the desires, hopes and struggles of those on the receiving end of unjust forms of power, and of those who work to challenge such inequities and to realize a region, as well as a larger world, that, is radically inclusive and democratic, and that centers social and environmental justice. In producing various components of the guide, students learn about archival research methods, cartographic analysis, and landscape reading, while enhancing their writing and editing skills. The goal of the guide is to tell a story about the making of the Hudson Valley as a region, an area that is characterized by strong ties within—as well as many divisions along axes of (among others) class, gender, race, sexuality, and space. The course explores these ties and divisions—how they were made, challenged, and struggled over—as a way of trying to make sense of what the Hudson Valley was and is, and what it could be. Joseph Nevins.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: INT -
GEOG 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
The Department.
Course Format: INT -
GEOG 297 - Readings in Geography Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Course Format: OTH -
GEOG 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Open to qualified students in other disciplines who wish to pursue related independent work in geography. The department.
Course Format: OTH
Geography: III. Advanced
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GEOG 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
1 -semester, 1 unit thesis. Students meet as a group with the thesis adviser for two-hour workshops five times during the semester. During non-workshop weeks, students have an individual meeting of 30-60 minutes with the adviser. Brian Godfrey.
Course Format: INT -
GEOG 303 - Advanced Debates in Urban Studies Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This seminar focuses on selected issues of importance in Urban Studies. Topics vary according to the instructor. The course is required of all majors and may be taken during the junior or senior years; it can be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Topic for 2020/21a: PRESERVING WHOSE CITY? Memory, Planning, and Placemaking. (Same as URBS 303 ) “Memoria” was a classical muse, symbolizing society’s existence in time and space, thereby linking the past, present, and future. In the 19th century, collective memory served “imagined communities” of nationalism, modernism, and urbanism. During the “memory boom” of the 20th century arose issues of genocide, holocaust, human rights, multiculturalism, historic preservation. Rather than being simple and transparent, collective memory has served a variety of interests and purposes.
Memory now fosters place identity, tourism, and symbolism in our globalized and urbanized world. Cities recognize heritage sites, historic districts, monuments and landmarks, memorials, and other special areas as strategies of placemaking – the social, spatial, and symbolic processes by which distinctive places emerge. While not a new phenomenon, placemaking now increasingly results from planning and branding campaigns by governmental, commercial, and community organizations.
This seminar focuses on the role of place memory in the planning, governance, and cultures of cities. We consider both official historic designations and grassroots efforts of “counter-memory” to recognize underappreciated and marginalized groups. Field trips examine the making of historic places in the Hudson Valley and New York City. After examining the theory and practice of historic placemaking, students carry out research on sites of their own choosing. Brian Godfrey.
Prerequisite(s): URBS 100 and URBS 200 or the equivalent, and permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 304 - Senior Seminar: Issues in Geographic Theory and Method Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
A review of the theory, method, and practice of geographical inquiry. The seminar traces the history of geographic thought from early episodes of global exploration to modern scientific transformations. The works and biographies of major contemporary theorists are critically examined in terms of the changing philosophies of geographic research. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are discussed, along with scientific, humanist, radical, feminist, and other critiques in human geography. Overall, alternative conceptions of geography are related to the evolution of society and the dominant intellectual currents of the day. The student is left to choose which approaches best suits his or her own research. The seminar culminates in the presentation of student research proposals. Joe Nevins.
One 3-hour period.
Not Offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 340 - Advanced Urban and Regional Studies
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 340 )
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 352 - Medicine and (Dis)order: A Social Geography of Healthcare
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 352 ) The healthcare industry is a central component of the modern world. In the case of the United States, it has co-evolved with capitalism, inequality, mass incarceration, and urbanization-among other phenomena. Using a social and historical geographic lens, this course examines the development of medicine as it relates to these phenomena as well as matters of social difference (e.g., gender, sexuality, class, and race) and associated social struggles. Topics include the development of healthcare institutions and related labor regimes, race and medical experimentation, and transgender identity and the healthcare system. In exploring these topics, the course also engages alternative understandings of health and wellness, and organized efforts “from below” to realize alternative, more democratic forms of healthcare.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 356 - Environment and Land-Use Planning
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 356 and URBS 356 ) This seminar focuses on land-use issues such as open-space planning, urban design, transportation planning, and the social and environmental effects of planning and land use policies. The focus of the course this year is impacts of planning policies (such as transportation, zoning, or growth boundaries) on environmental quality, including open space preservation, farmland conservation, and environmental services. We begin with global and regional examples and then apply ideas in the context of Dutchess County’s trajectory of land use change and planning policies.
Topic 2019/20a: Re-Envisioning The North Side: From Automobility to Place. This seminar focuses on planning issues such as sustainable land use planning, urban design, transportation planning, and social/economic effects of urban planning policies. Using the City of Poughkeepsie as a laboratory, this seminar will focus on how transportation and land use planning decisions affect the social, economic, cultural, and environmental resources of neighborhoods and communities through an in-depth look at the north side parking lots in downtown Poughkeepsie and the “East-West Arterial”. We specifically examine the socio-economic, demographic, mobility and access issues, as well as environmental, and planning concerns surrounding the history of the downtown and the City’s transportation decision making, (including the provision of large parking lots and construction of the “Arterial” in the early 1970s in tandem with creation of a pedestrian mall on Main Street). Though fieldwork, readings and exercises, we will explore potential opportunities for re-envisioning the north side parking lots and the roadways that serve the study area (especially the “Arterial”).
Prerequisite(s): One 200-level course in Geography, Urban Studies or Environmental Studies.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 372 - Topics in Human Geography Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
This seminar focuses on advanced debates in the socio-spatial organization of the modern world. The specific topic of inquiry varies from year to year. Students may repeat the course for credit if the topic changes.
Topic for 2020/21a: Capitalist Imperatives: Space, Nature, and Technology. (Same as INTL 372 ) Since the financial crisis in 2008, there has been surging intellectual discussion about the fundamentals and contradictions of global capitalism. Using influential writings by scholars such as Harvey, Piketty, Brenner, Zuboff, A. Ong, Dempsey and others, this seminar explores the range of theoretical analysis during the last decade about the roles of space, nature, and technology in the accumulation and crisis of capitalism. These works underpin our understanding of uneven global development, spatial inequality, technology transformation, and environmental destruction. The following topics are discussed: political economies of neoliberalism and its crisis, accumulation by dispossession, commercialization of nature; surveillance capitalism, and alternative economic systems. Yu Zhou.
Topic for 2020/21b: Geography of Social Movements. Why does collective action emerge in some places but not others? How do social movements mobilize support for their agendas – historically and in the current world? How are geographical concepts, such as space, place scale, and networks integral to collective action and how are they (re)produced, in part, through political struggle? This seminar explores these central questions through reading the traditional theories used to explore social movement mobilization and applying these theories to historic examples to understand their strengths and weaknesses. We then unpack the role of space, place, scale and (inter)networks in structuring, and with the rise of new movements and new technologies, (dis)placing and transforming collective action. What does all of this mean for the future of collective action? We focus on recent actions to control and re-envision urban space, such as the BLM movement, to explore this question. Susan Blickstein.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 374 - Geographies of Extractive Capitalism Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Our lives run on fossil fuels, minerals, and other natural resources that have been extracted in various locations across the Earth. Drawing on political ecology, this seminar examines how natural resource extraction has fueled and sustained global capitalism, in its multiple forms and historical phases. Resource extraction has transformed both political and physical landscapes in various regions, and it has had destructive effects on the biophysical and geological properties of Earth. Reading geographical, anthropological, and political ecology texts on mining and fossil fuel extraction, we explore how scholars have theorized these relationships and the possibility of creating different ways of living. Topics include silver mining and the Spanish Empire, fossil fuels and industrialization, extractive states’ practices of sovereignty and territorial control, Indigenous rights and environmental justice movements, labor, the “resource curse,” and recent moves toward Corporate Social Responsibility and environmental sustainability. Ashley Fent.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 376 - Asian Diasporas: from empires to pluralism
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 376 and ASIA 376 ) Focusing on Asian Diasporas, this course engages discourses in diaspora studies and pluralism from the Vassar campus to the wider world. Our goal is both to introduce theories of migration, diaspora, cultural transformation, world system, transnationalism, and globalization, and examine some of the complex history of movements of people from Asia to other parts of the world and their integration in diverse communities. Organized chronologically, the course begins by considering the deep history of movement and interconnection in Asia and beyond with particular focus on the Asia-centered world system of the 13th and 14th centuries. We then study the movements and experiences of indentured laborers and of merchants during the era of European colonial domination. Here we engage a range of topics including the role of religion in plantation life, the role of diasporic communities and racial politics in creating post-colonial nations, the emergence, conflicts and coalitions of ethnic identities in the United States and elsewhere, and key political and cultural moments in the history of Asian-America. We then examine recent forms of nationalism and transnationalism of Asian diasporas in the context of post WWII decolonization, late capitalism, disjunctive modernity, and identity politics in the contemporary era. The principal cases are drawn from East Asian and South Asian communities in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and the United States.
As a seminar, the course material is multi-disciplinary, ranging from political-economic to cultural studies and engages material at a high level of sophistication. We have also tried to include diverse geographical regions. Asia and Diaspora are vast topics and not every topic can be covered in the course. You have further opportunity in your research paper to discuss topics and areas of your interest.
Prerequisite(s): 200-level work in Asian Studies, Anthropology or Geography, or permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 384 - Community GIS
1 unit(s)
Geographers contribute to vitality and equity in their communities by examining the spatial dynamics of socioeconomic and environmental problems. Strategies used to interrogate these problems include mapping and geographic information systems (GIS), or computer-aided mapping and spatial analysis. For example, community access to transportation and housing, differential access to food or health care, or distributions of social services are often best understood in terms of mapped patterns. These patterns both reflect and influence the social dynamics of a community. In addition to affecting quality of life, these issues give insights into the ways we decide as a society to allocate resources. In this course we take on subjects of concern in the local area and use mapping and spatial data to examine them. Projects may involve work with groups in the Poughkeepsie area as well as library research, readings, some GIS work. Course activities and projects vary according to subjects studied. Because this course focuses on collaborative research projects, rather than on the technology, GIS and cartography are useful but not prerequisite courses.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 386 - Global Environmental Activism: Political Ecology, Liberation and Citizenship
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 386 ) Environments are political and politicized in varied ways. Some environmental movements adopt militant tactics or use environmental grievances as part of broader political resistance, while in other cases, environmentalism serves as a powerful way of practicing citizenship or demanding rights and recognition from the state. In this seminar, we apply a political ecology framework to interrogate the complex relationships between local and global socio-ecologies, activists in the Global North and South, international environmental NGOs, and nation-states. Focusing on case studies from around the world—such as the Zapatistas, the Brazilian MST (Landless Workers Movement), Earth Liberation Front, the Chipko Movement, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, and the Green Belt Movement in Kenya—we seek to understand how, when, and why environmentalism intersects with political movements and demands. In examining these cases, we also consider ideas of “nature” and distinctive approaches to the environment. Overall, we interrogate processes through which radical ideas about ecological, social, and political life may be co-opted, formalized, or undermined.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2020/21.
Course Format: CLS -
GEOG 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
The Department.
Course Format: OTH
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