85491 - Geography of The Euro-Mediterranean Region

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students a comprehensive vision of the role played by the Euro-Mediterranean area as a whole, following the different stages of its evolution. Specific attention will be paid to the peculiar mixing up of politics, space, cultures, and technics, which generated an original long-standing model whose today's crisis and mutation are keys to understand the global issues at stake. By the end of the course, students have basic knowledge, fundamental references concerning the topics at issue, and critical skills, put into historical perspective, about the main geographical models concerning the relationship between environment, landscape, and urban civilization in Mediterranean and Eurasia.

Course contents

COURSE OUTLINE

Preliminaries

Class 1 What is geography? Art, geography, and the quest for a new Earth’s ethos
Class 2 What is geography? II: geographers are the ones who know that the Earth is round
Class 3 Existing implicit and/or explicit geographic models concerning Euro-Mediterranean region: traditional implicit and explicit models
Class 4 Existing implicit and/or explicit geographic models concerning Euro-Mediterranean region II: implicit critical models
Class 5 Existing implicit and/or explicit geographic models concerning Euro-Mediterranean region III: explicit critical models
Class 6 What is Mediterranean? Why Euro-Mediterranean? The Mediterranean model and the mediterraneanisation
Class 7 An evolutionary model: the Mediterranean of networks, of cities, of bunds, of empires
Class 8 Not an obliged path: The option for nation states. Mediterranean and the genesis of the Europe's representation
Class 9 Roman Empire and its route system. An edging sense of boundary. Citizenship and identity. Christendom and the notion of 'patria' (homeland). Barbarians and heathens. Slavic and islamic spaces.
Class 10 The world system of 13th century. The new urban civilization and the secularization of culture.
Class 11 The Italian Communes. Siena and Lorenzetti's world map.
Class 12 Project and Modern Age. Modernity and the cleavage between knowledge and practices. Colonialism and Columbian exchange
Class 13 «Characters» and ethnicity: the Völkertafel. The thematic maps and the notion of «race».
Cartographic production of nation-state. The case studies of France, Netherlands, England.
National landscapes.
Class 14 Standardization of space and time. Nineteeenth century's city and the modernization of everyday life.
The models of Paris and London. The novelties of nineteenth century's city.
Class 15 The Mediterranean between decolonization and post-colonization. The Mediterranean within the international relations' system between 20th and 21st century. The decline of culture and information as 'land factors'. Deterritorialization and deculturation.

Scales

Class 16 Scales as size
Class 17 Scales as level
Class 18 Scales as relation
Class 19 Mediterranean and systems' geography
Class 20 Sustainability’s scales and the issue of their complexity

Cities

Class 21 What is a city?
Class 22 Pre-modern and modern cities: the grid
Class 23 The false opposition between state and market and the role of cities
Class 24 Why Euro-Mediterranean cities cannot be mapped and reduced to traditional regions
Class 25 Mobility and cities

Networks

Class 26 Why networks are still cool
Class 27 Are temporal/spatial comparisons between networks feasible?
Class 28 Lessons to be learnt from the old networks
Class 29 Micropolitics, global issues, and the imbrication of identities
Class 30 Networks and the anthropology of landscape: steps to a cosmopolitics of territoriality. Conclusions: overall summary and discussion.

Readings/Bibliography

ANY STUDENTS (ATTENDING OR NOT), TO PASS THE EXAM MUST STUDY BOTH THE COMPULSORY GENERAL READINGS AND CHOOSE ONE OUT OF THE THREE SPECIAL TOPICS AVAILABLE

COMPULSORY READINGS

M. Neve, Learning from Places : Steps to a Geography of Cultural Heritage, in F. Miszlivetz (ed.), Creative Cities and Sustainability, Szombathely: Savaria University Press, 2015, pp. 31-57; M. Neve, Geography of European Medieval Urbanism, in: Medieval Art, Museums and World Civilizations Series, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2017; A.M. Medici, The Edges of a Worldwide Sea: The Mediterranean from an African Perspective. in: The Mediterranean as a Tool to Understand the Modern Crisis. Munich: Akademischer Verlag, 2017; F. Farinelli, Map Knowledge, in S. Günzel and L. Nowak (eds.), Karten Wissen. Territoriale Räume zwischen Bild und Diagramm, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012, pp. 33-44; F. Farinelli, The Power, the Map, and Graphic Semiotics: The Origin, in I. Baumgärtner and M. Stercken (eds.), Herrschaft verorten. Politische Kartographie im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2012, pp. 355-62; G. Marramao, The Passage West. Philosophy After the Age of the Nation State, London: Verso, 2012, chrs. 1-2; J.C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998, chr. 1; J. Crampton, Mapping : A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, chrs. 6 and 11; G. Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing. Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, London and New York: Verso, chrs. 8-9; S. Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008, Introduction and Part One.

SPECIAL TOPICS AT STUDENTS' CHOICE

SCALES
M. Neve, Through the Looking-Map: Mapping as a Milieu of Individuation, in A. Sarti, F. Montanari, F. Galofaro (eds.), Morphogenesis and Individuation, Cham : Springer, 2015, pp. 111-40; P. Khanna, Connectography, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2016, chrs. 1-2; M.C. Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001, ch. 1; S. Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008, Part Three.

CITIES
J. Gottmann, Orbits: The ancient Mediterranean tradition of urban networks, «Ekistiks», vol. 53, 1986, n. 316-317, pp. 4-10; K. Polanyi, Ports of Trade in Early Societies, «The Journal of Economic History», Vol. 23, No. 1. (Mar., 1963), pp. 30-45; M. Peraldi, Algerian Routes: Emancipation, Deterritorialisation and Transnationalism through Suitcase Trade, «History and Anthropology», Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 47–61; M. Peraldi, The Maghreb, a laboratory of new migrations, «New Geography», n°5, Harvard University Press, 2012.

NETWORKS
I. Malkin, A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.001.0001, Introduction: Networks and History, DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.003.0001; M. Cooke, Mediterranean Thinking: From Netizen to Medizen, «Geographical Review», Vol. 89, No. 2, Oceans Connect (Apr., 1999), pp. 290-300; J. Abu-Lughod, The shape of the world system in the thirteenth century, «Studies in Comparative International Development», Winter 1987–88, Volume 22, Issue 4, pp 3-25; D. Retaillé O. Walther, Space and mobility: Lessons from the Sahel to the globalized world, in Boesen E, Marfaings L. (eds) Mobilité dans l'Espace Ouest-Africain: Ressources,Développement Local et Intégration Régionale, Paris: Karthala, 2014, pp. 207-234.

Teaching methods

Course will be taught through a mixture of formal lectures and discussion classes. Its aim will be to facilitate interaction between the lecturer and students and to stimulate debate among students.
Class attendance is critical to take advantage of a way of learning not feasible through homework, and it turns out to be crucial in order for the student to adequately satisfy exam requirements.

Assessment methods

The exam consists of an oral examination on the entire syllabus (compulsory readings plus the bibliography related to the specific topic chosen by the student) and counts for 70% of the final grade.
The aim of the interview is to assess the methodological and critical skills acquired by the student. Given the importance of class attendance for an appropriate training process it will be two distinct grading scales: for attending and non-attending students.

Attending students
Attendance and participation count for 30% of the final grade.
In particular, it will be assessed the ability of the student to participate actively in class, also using multimedia and collaborative tools provided within the course; such capacity, if combined with the achievement of a coherent framework of the topics developed during the lessons , the application of critical sense and suitable means of expression will be considered and evaluated with the maximum grading = A (27-30 con lode).
Attendance, if joint to a predominantly mnemonic acquisition of course's contents and discontinuous language and logical skills will be assessed in a grading range from good (B = 24-26) to satisfactory (C = 21-23).
Attendance, with a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with training gaps or inadequate language and logical skills, it will get as grade ‘barely passing' (D = 18-20).
The absence of a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with inadequate language and logical skills and training gaps, it will produce a fail (E) grading, even in spite of an assiduous attendance.

Non-attending students
Non-attending students will be assessed exclusively on the ground of course's bibliography, in order to properly expose the contents of the course. Of course, they too are expected to choose one of the three focus topics (Scales, Cities, Networks) whose relative bibliography must be studied along with compulsory readings.
The knowledge of compulsory readings and complementary literature related to the topics of students' choice, when combined with the achievement of a coherent framework of the course's themes, the application of critical sense, and suitable means of expression will be considered and evaluated with the maximum grading = A (27-30 con lode).
A predominantly mnemonic acquisition of course's contents along with discontinuous language and logical skills will be assessed in a grading range from good (B = 24-26) to satisfactory (C = 21- 23).
A minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with training gaps or inadequate language and logical skills, it will get as grade ‘barely passing' (D = 18-20).
The absence of a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with inadequate language and logical skills and training gaps, it will produce a fail (E) grading.


AS OF JANUARY 2016, THE LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF ENTRIES FOR EVERY EXAM'S LIST HAS BEEN REMOVED, SO, ONCE THE LISTS ARE OPEN (15 DAYS BEFORE THE EXAM) YOU MAY REGISTER WITH NO LIMITS. OF COURSE, IF THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS ENROLLED EXCEEDS 20, EXAM WILL LAST MORE DAYS. THE NUMBER OF EXAMINATIONS FOR EACH ACADEMIC YEAR IS 6, ACCORDING TO THE MINIMUM NUMBER REQUIRED BY THE TEACHING REGULATION OF THE SCHOOL, TWO FOR EACH PRE-EXAM BREAK. EXAMINATIONS' DATES WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH SEMESTER. THEY ARE NOT ACCEPTED, FOR ANY REASON, REQUESTS FOR EXAMINATIONS IN DIFFERENT YEAR'S PERIODS.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW EXAMS' SCHEDULE, REARRANGED TO MEETING THE STUDENTS' REQUESTS, THE ORDER OF REGISTRATION TO THE LIST OF EACH EXAM'S DAY WILL NOT BE CHANGED. WHOEVER HAD SPECIFIC REASONS TO TAKE THE EXAM IN A GIVEN DAY (AND CONSIDERING THAT THE EXAMS WILL BE HELD ON MORE DAYS) IS ALLOWED TO CONTACT HIS/HER COLLEAGUES AND ASK FOR SHIFTING THE LIST, PROVIDED THAT THE NUMBER OF EXAMS EXPECTED FOR THAT DAY MUST REMAIN THE SAME.

INFORMATION ABOUT EXAMS AND PROGRAM OF EXAMINATION ARE TO BE FOUND ONLY ON THE DEDICATED WEB PAGES, THROUGH THE TEACHER-STUDENTS' LIST, THROUGH THE PROGRAMME’S TUTOR. OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION ARE TO BE CONSIDERED AS UNRELIABLE AND WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED VALID.

Teaching tools

Lectures with main topics discussed with students. Multimedia tools.

Office hours

See the website of Mario Angelo Neve