81970 - Geography and Cognition of European Territory (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Docente: Claudio Minca
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: M-GGR/01
  • Language: English
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in History and Oriental Studies (cod. 8845)

Learning outcomes

Starting from the history of the idea of Europe, the course aims to explain the nature and the logic of European space and landscapes in their geographical, cultural and cognitive roots. The course brings critical perspectives from humanities and from economics to bear in considering how Europe as a set of new transnational policy spaces is making a difference to Europe as a myriad of lived, experienced, meaningful, crucial places.

Course contents

The course will examine the history and the contemporary use of Geopolitics in order to critically examine the political geograpohies of European imperialism, cold war and post-cold war geopolitics, and the contemporary geopolitics of Europe and the EU. In particular, questions of borders, migrations and biopolitics will be discussed in relation to the 'making of the European Self' and its associated geographies.

Readings/Bibliography

S. Dalby, P. Routledge, G. Ó Tuathail (eds) The Geopolitics Reader. London, Routledge, 2020 (second edition)

G. Ó Tuathail Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space. University of Minnesota Press, 1996

Luiza Bialasiewicz (ed), Europe in the world: EU geopolitics and the making of European space, Farnham-Burlington: Ashgate, 2011

Additional materials will be provided during the lectures

Teaching methods

The course will consist of a mixture of formal lectures and discussion classes in order to facilitate the interaction between the lecturer and the students and to stimulate debate among students. Several guest lectures and seminars will be incorporated in the course schedule as well.

Assessment methods

The assessment consists of a written exam with open questions.

There are different sets of question for attending and non attending students. Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

- Attending students will be asked questions focussed on the materials discussed in class and on the relevant list of readings.

- Non-attending students will be asked questions focussed on topics and subjects treated in the textbook and the other readings.

The assessment will consider:

1) the level of knowledge and critical understanding of the content addressed in the questions;

2) the strength of the argument and the capacity to identify links between the main topics discussed in the responses;

3) the use of the appropriate terminology.

Overall:

- Adequate language skills and the ability to critically analyze relevant topics will lead to a good/excellent final grade

- Acceptable language skills and the ability to resume relevant topics will lead to a sufficient/fair grade.

- Insufficient language proficiency and knowledge of relevant topics will lead to a failure in passing the exam.

Students who receive an insufficient mark are requested to take the exam again.

Teaching tools

Slides

Office hours

See the website of Claudio Minca