Place, Space, Culture, and Social Life
one-way Exclusions
Two 1.5 hour lectures per week
Please note that course information listed in the Arts and Science Course Calendar supersedes any information listed on the Geography and Planning website.
For the most current course offerings, registered Queen鈥檚 students should consult .
Course Description
Space and place are central to how we experience the world. In this course we will be social geographers, examining how intersecting relations of power such as capitalism, ableism, heteronormativity, and colonialism produce place, and how we in turn are affected by the spaces we inhabit, engage, and consume. Our geographical interrogations will take us from favela tours in Rio de Janeiro to harm reduction organizing in our own backyard. We will consider collective responses to infectious disease in South Africa, and the makings of Caribbean identity in the restaurants of Scarborough. We will follow Wonder Woman to Egypt and witness the Mi鈥檏maq battling zombies on Turtle Island. Our course materials will include both academic literature and cultural artefacts like films, music videos, and novels that we encounter in our daily lives. While this is a lecture course wherever possible we will engage active learning in order to develop course concepts in meaningful ways. The course is divided into six modules: Place and Space; Carceral and Abolition Geographies; Nature and Embodiment; Geographical Imaginaries; Land(scape); and Borders.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain key theoretical approaches and concepts in social and cultural geography, including landscape, place, space, borders, and diaspora.
- Describe how interlocking systems of power shape social geographies across the Global North and Global South.
- Analyze cultural artefacts and case studies to explain how people make sense of their social and cultural worlds.
- Communicate complex ideas in written, verbal, and visual form.
Assessments
Subject to Change
- Participation Points
- Midterm
- Film Essay
- Final Exam