CURRENT COURSES
Spring 2023
GEG 020 - ELEMENTS OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
MWF 11:00-11:50
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to “thinking geographically” about culture. This involves considering how people's actions through social, economic, and political processes create and transform places. Most of us, in the course of our day-to-day existence, are not aware of the webs of culture we are enmeshed in, at global, national, regional, and local scales. In turn, each of these scales influences the other. This semester, you will study how peoples' culture affects the world around them, and in turn, how it is affected by the cultures and environments that surround it.
GEG 112 - GEOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA
MWF 10:00-10:50
In this course, you will learn to think geographically about place. Using the state of Pennsylvania as our setting, we will examine principles of human and physical geography and how they interact and affect each other to create the cultural and physical landscapes of the state.
ENV 202 - CONCEPTS OF FOOD JUSTICE
M 1:00-1:50
Truly regenerative agriculture, to be successful, cannot be only for the elite, but must reach all segments of society. To succeed in this, practitioners of regenerative agriculture need to understand the broader geographical, cultural, social, and political systems within which they operate. This course is intended as an introduction to concepts surrounding food justice and food security in the context of agriculture and is supported by 6 semesters of Regenerative Field Lab (ENV 200) for majors in the Environmental Science Regenerative Agriculture track. Students in other majors may take the course as a brief, stand-alone introduction to the concepts of food justice.
GEG 380 - SENIOR SEMINAR IN GEOGRAPHY
TTh 3:00-4:20
Senior Seminar is a core requirement for the geography major. It is a small, seminar-based course, and as such, it requires more thought and more participation from students than a "regular" undergraduate class. More than most classes, this is one where you will learn and grow in proportion to the time and energy you expend. There are two main areas of concentration for the course. The first is the writing of a Senior Thesis, a requirement for graduation (in lieu of a comprehensive exam). To this end, we will continue the discussion of methods begun in your Research Methods class, and will learn how to prepare and present original research projects. Additionally, we will discuss in detail the history of geographic thought. The philosophical basis of geographic thought forms an essential platform for a complete understanding of geography – we all have underlying biases and theories, whether or not we are conscious of them. Yet these assumptions and biases color the research we do, the methods we use, and the conclusions we reach. This course introduces the mainstream of geographic thought as it has evolved in the United States, and the underlying theories that have animated each time period. This may also be your chance for introspection, as you think about your place in the discipline of Geography that you have chosen for your life's work.
OTHER COURSES
GEG 020 (HONORS) - HONORS ELEMENTS OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
Next offered Fall 2024
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to “thinking geographically” about culture. This involves considering how people's actions through social, economic, and political processes create and transform places. Most of us, in the course of our day-to-day existence, are not aware of the webs of culture we are enmeshed in, at global, national, regional, and local scales. In turn, each of these scales influences the other. This semester, you will study how peoples' culture affects the world around them, and in turn, how it is affected by the cultures and environments that surround it. The course will follow an eclectic format, with discussion, readings, projects, field trips, lectures, and occasional videos and guest speakers.
GEG 110 - GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
Next offered Fall 2023
A number of studies have shown that many Americans are not only geographically illiterate about the world, but know little about their own country and continent. In the beginning of the 21st century, the United States faces many challenges both at home and abroad. You, as citizens and leaders of the early 21st century, will have the responsibility for constructively dealing with these problems. A detailed appreciation of the complex geography of North America will enhance both your personal and professional lives and make you better able to face the future. At the conclusion of this course, you should have not only a basic knowledge of the whats and wheresof North American geography, but also the whys and hows. Why is one region different from another? How do different geographical elements interact to create the cultural and physical patterns we see in North America?
GEG 120 - GEOGRAPHY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Next offered Fall 2023
"So geographers in Afric maps / With savage pictures fill the gaps / And o’r uninhabitable downs / Placed elephants for want of towns. --Jonathan Swift, early 18th Century
Thus Jonathan Swift (of Gulliver’s Travels fame) satirized the ignorance of his countrymen and women (particularly the geographers, who supposedly knew all about the world), about Africa. Some things never change – the same could be written about most modern Americans. Africa remains a large empty spot in most North Americans’ mental maps. What’s more, what little we do know, or think we know, has usually been filtered through western stereotypes and preconceptions, and through the “if it bleeds, it leads” sensibility of our national media. The central purpose of the course is to erase those blank spots in your mental map, to get rid of stereotyped “savage pictures” of Swift’s description, and investigate the multiple dimensions of change in Subsaharan Africa – political, economic, cultural, and ecological. This class, as with all regional geography courses, will be an interdisciplinary one, but the overall focus will be both geographic and African-oriented. It is a geographical perspective because we analyze contemporary social changes in the context of people’s relationship to land and landscapes. It is African-oriented because we examine theories and policies of development, environment, culture, and politics with an eye toward a diversity of African views of both.
FYS 100 - FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: THE POWER OF PLACE
Next offered Fall 2023
Places are more than geographic coordinates; they are centers of meaning and experience that powerfully influence us. How does place shape us, and how do we shape the places around us? We will explore the ways that people interact with places and give them meaning,
and the ways that places teach us about our cultures and ourselves, through various media including film, graphic novels, readings, fieldwork, art, interviews, and personal reflections.
The First-Year Seminar prepares students for the kind of academic work expected in college and introduces them to key resources at the University while exploring a topic in depth.
GEG 225 - SPACES OF GLOBALIZATION
Next offered Spring 2024
Globalization consists of a complex array of economic, cultural, and political forces that are shrinking our world, speeding up and expanding economic interaction, changing our environments, and fundamentally altering our cultures. In many ways, the traditional geography of countries and continents are being transformed, for global forces are not confined to the borders of a single country or region. Underpinning this course will be a discussion of one of the most fundamental geographic issues facing us today: what is the relationship between global-scale processes and local-scale experiences? We will examine in depth the differing effects that globalization has at different scales – from the international, to the national, to the local. A central objective of this course is to foster critical thinking on the complex forces that are shaping, and being shaped by, the geography of the world that all of us live in, forces that are to most people, mere abstractions.