INTL 372 - Topics In Human Geography

Semester Offered: Fall
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. Previous seminar themes include the Geography & Social Movements, Lines, Fences and Walls, Political Ecology, and Ethnic Geography.

Topic for 2020/21a: Capitalist Imperatives: Space, Nature, and Technology. (Same as GEOG 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.

One 3-hour period.

Course Format: CLS