GEOGRAPHY 450
THE MAKING OF THE
MODERN WORLD
(SYLLABUS, FALL,
2007)
Instructor: Kevin
R. Cox (292-7948 (O); 888-6292 (H));
Teaching Assistant Nicholas
Crane (292-6127 (O); 439-6736 (H));
Office and Office Hours:
Kevin R. Cox: 1106 Derby Hall;
9:00 - 10:00 Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; or by appointment.
Nicholas Crane: 1036 Derby Hall;
10:00 - 11:30 Mondays and Wednesdays; or by appointment.
Course Focus:
The making of
the modern world, the process of modernization, has been in its expression an
intensely geographic one: one of overseas expansion, of the creation of new
geographic divisions of labor, of dramatic transformations of natural
environments, of urbanization, colonialism and what we have come to know more
recently as globalization. In turn
the conditions for these changes have been processes of capitalist development,
state formation, the creation of the global polity and new forms of
consciousness. It is the objective of this course to trace out these changes in
world geography and to link them to these underlying processes, though with
attention to the way in which those processes have in turn been altered by
their encounter with new geographical contexts.
Course Outline:
The course is organized around eleven modules as follows:
Module 1: The Making of the Modern World: Preliminary Consideration
Module 2: Turning the World into a Marketplace: The Initial Phase
Module 3: Creating One World?
Module 4: The Formation of the Global Polity
Module 5: Encounters, Difference and Identity
Module 6: Empire and Colonialism
Module 7: The Transformation of Nature
Module 8: Modernity, Cultural Imperialism and Placelessness
Module 9: Geographies of Uneven Development
Module 10: Modernization in Question (Whose World Is It Anyway?)