78090 - Geography and Cognition of European Territories (LM)

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

“Europe’s Many Spatialities”:

Grounded in modern and contemporary thought, this course seeks to examine the cultural, material, and political production of European space—its form and nature—through an analysis of the interrelations between historical processes, economic developments, cartographic imagin(e)ation, and the "climate of history." Taking as its point of departure the current global conjuncture—characterized by multiple ongoing wars, the structural violence of migration policies, and the normalization of openly genocidal practices—the course interrogates the idea of Europe not as a given or self-evident entity, but as a moral and moralizing space: a historically situated construct that has long sought, and continues to seek, to assert itself as universal through the production of moral geographies, regimes of visibility, and technologies of inclusion and exclusion. Through the critical analysis of Europe’s multiple spatialities—material and symbolic, visible and subterranean, mappable and resistant—the course aims to deconstruct the entanglements of geography, power, and moral justification that underpin the contemporary international order. 

The course program is divided into five parts.

1) Keywords, concepts, geopolitical discrepancies, colonialism, "discovery", borders, modernity, ubiquity (Charbonnier), Capitalocene (Moore)

2) Europe as a World ordering Force: "volta do mar" and cartographical projection

3) Utopia (Speculative Fiction, Haraway and Le Guin), "occupatio"/exception (Schmitt and Agamben)

4) Colonialism, terror and territories, sacred man (Gilroy, Fanon, Agamben)

5) Terraforming: Planetary Turn

Readings/Bibliography

P. Sloterdijk, In the World Interior of Capital. For a Philosophical
Theory of Globalization, Polity Press, 2013.

C. Casarino, Modernity at Sea. Melville, Marx, Conrad in Crisis, Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota press, 2002.

Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Edited by Jason W. Moore

Human Rights from a Third World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law Edited by José-Manuel Barreto, 2013

Muhannad Ayyash, The Western imperial order on display in Gaza: Palestine as an ideological fault line in the international arena-https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.unibo.it/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2025.2465522

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

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

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

OR:

The exam consists of a written examination on the entire syllabus. The aim 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 grading scales: for attending and non-attending students.

Attending students

Attendance and participation count for 15% 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

Written examination on the entire syllabus

Non-attending students will be assessed primarily on the ability to use literature and multimedia tools made available, in order to properly expose the contents of the course. This ability, 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.

Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders are entitled to special adjustments according to their condition, subject to assessment by the University Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact teachers or Department staff, but make an appointment with the Service. The Service will then determine what adjustments are specifically appropriate, and get in touch with the teacher. For more information, please visit the page:
https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Teaching tools

Powerpoint presentations, readings. At the end of each week, the slides will be uploaded to Virtuale.

Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders are entitled to special adjustments according to their condition, subject to assessment by the University Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact teachers or Department staff, but make an appointment with the Service. The Service will then determine what adjustments are specifically appropriate, and get in touch with the teacher. For more information, please visit the page:
https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Alessandra Bonazzi