70075 - Geography of Culture (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2014/2015

  • Teaching Mode: In-person learning (entirely or partially)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Geography and Territorial Processes (cod. 0971)

Learning outcomes


Course contents

During the Enlightenment, scientific travels aroused greater and greater interest.  It would be mistaken to take the travelling naturalist' apologetic rethoric of science for science's sake at face value; for geographical knowledge was geopolitical power. During the decades around 1900 there was a close temporal congruence between the emergence of new geography and the new imperialism. Conrad's 1924 essay On Geography and Some Explorers    recognizes the symbiosi of geography and empire by dividing the history of European exploration into three geographical phases and we will explore geography when it was triumphant.  Recommended reading: S. Greenblatt, Marvelous Possesion. The Wonder of the New World, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1991; S. Elden, E. mendieta, eds., reading Kant's Geography, Albany, State University Press, 2011. A. Godlewska, N. Smith, eds., Geography and Empire, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994 

Readings/Bibliography

P. Sloterdijk, Il mondo dentro il capitale, Roma, Meltemi, 2006;
H. Arendt, Le origini del totalitarismo, Torino, Einaudi, 2009.

Teaching methods

Lectures

Assessment methods

Oral examination comprising of a series of questions that aim to ascertain student's understanding of the bibliography for home study.

Teaching tools

Slides

Office hours

See the website of Alessandra Bonazzi