B8641 - GEOGRAFIE E CULTURE DEL GLOBALE (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will have acquired theoretical and critical knowledge of the cultural practices and geographical concepts that underpin the contemporary global model of the world. Consequently, the student will be able to identify the epistemological, systemic, and cultural limitations of this model.

Course contents

The course takes as its point of departure the dysphoric condition of the present and the destabilisation of the epistemic, cultural, and political order inherited from modernity (Preciado).

It therefore proposes working with geographical concepts as objects in ruins (Fisher; Tsing): not in order to update them by adding further attributes, but to recognise the work they continue to perform, what they render visible, and what they programme as waste or discard. The Italian verb scartare will be used in a dual sense: to set aside categories that present themselves as self-evident, and to produce a displacement capable of opening up other geometries of knowledge.

The course will be structured around five conceptual shifts.

1. From the Globe to the Planetary

The Globe will be analysed as an effect of cartographic logi(sti)cs: an epistemic and material configuration that translates the Earth into a homogeneous, measurable surface available for appropriation (Farinelli; Schmitt). The cartographic grid does not represent a pre-existing order; rather, it constitutes the first infrastructuring upon which the nomos, the territoriality of the state, and the capture of the outside are established.

2. From Territory to Terrain/Terreno

Territory will be interrogated as a fetish-dispositif subjected to continuous theoretical reactivation. Materialising, historicising, decolonising, volumising, or “terrestrialising” it does not necessarily resolve the disjunction between its political geometry and the contemporary operativity of capital, logistics, and war (Elden).

The displacement from Territory to Terrain/Terreno (Elden; Gordillo) will not propose a new replacement category. Terrain names the political materiality in which geopolitics and geophysics intersect: the operational where of infrastructures, warfare, and insurgency. The imperfect translatability of terrain as the Italian terreno makes it possible to accentuate its social and political dimension: a terrain of oppression and confrontation, but also of resistance and emancipation. Terreno will thus be explored as an open epistemic dispositif capable of disaligning the geometries of the territory-fetish.

3. From Landscape to Landscope

Landscape will be studied as an aesthetic and epistemic dispositif of terrestrial globalisation. Its perspectival arrangement separates a mobile, sovereign subject from a Nature rendered visible, available, and open to valorisation. Landscape does not simply conceal power relations: it transforms them into perceptible evidence, naturalising the horizon of capital as the horizon of the real.

The shift from landscape to landscope will bring into view what the landscape dispositif expels: capital, movement, property, labour, and appropriation. Operational landscapes (Brenner and Katsikis) will make it possible to analyse hinterlands, extractive zones, and logistical infrastructures not as spaces external to the city or landscape, but as conditions of their reproduction. Discarding landscape will therefore entail moving from a spectatorial position to reconstructing the relations that put territories and subjectivities to work.

4. Infrastructures, Refinement, and Horror

Infrastructures—beginning with cartographic infrastructure—will not be regarded as neutral supports for social processes, but as political and aesthetic forms capable of predisposing behaviours, distributing possibilities, and embedding decisions (Larkin; Easterling). Standards, protocols, zones, platforms, and corridors produce an operational space that does not always need to assume the explicit form of a norm.

The function of infrastructures will be interrogated through the idea of refinement: selecting heterogeneous materials, bodies, information, and territories; separating what can be used from what remains as residue; and transforming it into flows compatible with accumulation. To refine means simultaneously to connect, filter, hierarchise, and discard.

Readings/Bibliography

State, Space, World: Selected Essays,  Neil Brenner Stuart EldenGerald Moore Neil Brenner Stuart Elden: 2009 [https://www.jstor.org/journal/] Edition: NED - New edition Published by: University of Minnesota Press [https://www.jstor.org/publishers/umnpress]

K. Easterling, Lo spazio in cui ci muoviamo: l'infrastruttura come sistema operativo, Roma, Treccani, 2019.

Q. Slobodian, Il capitalismo della frammentazione, Torino, Einaudi.

P. J. Guernsey, "The Infrastructures of White Settler Perception: A Political Phenomenology of Colonialism, Genocide, Ecocide, and Emergency," Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 5, no. 2 (2022):588-604.

N. Brenner, N. Katsikis, Operational Landscapes Hinterlands of the Capitalocene, Architectural Design, 2020. 

C. Schmitt, Il nomos della Terra nel diritto internazionale dello “Jius Publicum Europaeum”, Milano, Adelphi, 2006.

Elden S (2021) Terrain, politics, history. Dialogues in Human Geography 11(2): 170–189.

Gonin, A., Etelain, J., Maniglier, P., & Brighenti, A. M. (2025). Terrestrial territories: From the Globe to Gaia, a new ground for territory. Dialogues in Human Geography, 15(3), 442-460.

Teaching methods

The course is structured around a series of seminars in which the students are expecting to be involved in an open discussion facilitated by the lecturer. Teaching materials and slides will be made available on the Virtuale platform at the end of each week.

Assessment methods

Attending students

The exam consists of an oral presentation or a written paper on a topic discussed during the course (2500- 3000 words)

 

Non attending students: 

Oral examination on the following texts:

State, Space, World: Selected Essays, Neil Brenner Stuart EldenGerald Moore Neil Brenner Stuart Elden: 2009 [https://www.jstor.org/journal/] Edition: NED - New edition Published by: University of Minnesota Press [https://www.jstor.org/publishers/umnpress]

K. Easterling, Lo spazio in cui ci muoviamo: l'infrastruttura come sistema operativo, Roma, Treccani, 2019.

Regarding the learning assessment, the use of AI is prohibited. Any use of AI constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

 

There will be two examination sessions before the end of the year, in November and December, while the remaining sessions will take place between March and September.

 

Teaching tools

PowerPoint presentations, websites, videos, readings, and documents.

Students who require specific support and adjustments to the teaching activities due to disabilities or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the dedicated office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students .

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible ( https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Alessandra Bonazzi