Geography 780: Social Theory in Geography:

Spring, 2004

Since the 1970’s, gender perspectives and feminist analyses in human geography have grown to have significant effects on the discipline.  What are these effects, and what is the future of geographical thought in light of these new perspectives?  The course has a two-pronged approach: 1) Examining the effects of gender and culture on the investigators of geographical knowledge, 2) Analyzing the biases towards women and men as the subjects of that knowledge.

Student will be required to take an active role in class discussions, develop a short presentation, and write a major paper.  All geography graduate students, male and female, are welcome!

Possible themes for the seminar include, but are not limited to:

   Emergence of a feminist geographic 'tradition': Critiquing some of the key texts which form the foundations of feminist geography.

   Gender & the use of space : Geography of feminine and masculine spaces

   Gender relations & the built environment

   Gender, nature & landscape: 'Ways of seeing'.

   The geography of women, men, and work in developed and developing countries

Required Texts

Domosh, Mona and Seager, Joni. 2001. Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographies Make Sense of the World. Guilford Press.

Suggested readings (subject to modification):

Blunt, A. & J. Wills. (2000). Embodying Geography: feminist geographies of gender. In Dissident geographies. An introduction to radical ideas and practice. Essex: Prentice Hall

McDowell, Linda; and Sharp, Joanne P. (eds). (1999). A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography. London: Arnold.

Jones III, John Paul, ed. (1997) Thresholds in Feminist Geography: Difference, Methodology, Representation. Rowman and Littlefield

Katz C. and J. Monk (eds.) (1993) Full Circles: Geographies of Women over the Life Course. London: Routledge.

Mackay, Judith (2000) The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behavior. New York: Penguin Reference

McDowell, L. and Sharp, J., (eds), (1997), Space, gender, knowledge: feminist readings, Arnold.

Seager, J. (1997) The State of Women in the World Atlas. London: Penguin Reference

Women and Geography Study Group of the Royal Geographical Society with the IGB. (1997) Feminist Geographies: Explorations in Diversity and Difference. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.