Admission requirements
Required course(s):
Social Theory in Everyday Life
Global Challenges: Diversity
Description
First and foremost this course approaches the world as a collection of regions. Second, it investigates the complex nature of what regions are and how they are defined. Third, it focuses on major themes in human geography within a number of regions as well as relevant global challenges, as appropriate. The thematic elements may include cultural, urban, environmental, agricultural, and political geography; sustainable cities, human health, and migration. As a way of dividing the world, regions are not always clear or easy to define which provides room to explore how and why geographers particularly along with other scholars at times apply a regional approach in their work. A number of selected world regions will form the focus of the course during which we will discuss characteristics that define these places as well as connections between regions in the past and/or the present. Relevant themes in human geography which relate to global challenges will be used as focal points for each selected region, for example we could focus on the illicit drug trade across Middle and South America. The goal of this course is for each student to walk away with a better understanding of the world as a whole particularly with regard to geography and culture, and generally how different and distant places all fit together from the past into the present to inform a larger picture of our world.
Course Objectives
Skills:
Students will work on their groupwork skills.
Students will build on their knowledge of mapped locations and use of visual tools to communicate spatial information.
Students will work on writing a clearly formed narrative about geographic concepts.
Knowledge:
To be able to articulate the concept of regions, their complexity, and why scholars choose to organize space in this way.
Student will be able to apply spatial thinking in different contexts, such as mapping.
Students will improve their understanding of academic geography and its importance in understanding and addressing global challenges, such as developing sustainable solutions to current environmental challenges.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2021-2022 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
This course will proceed primarily as a seminar, meeting for two 2-hour sessions per week. Each class will center on discussion of the assigned reading, group work and may include some introductory remarks or a lecture. Students may be given a prompt related to the reading to thinking about in preparation for the class discussion and/or in class writing tasks
Assessment Method
Engagement (participation) 15%; ongoing
Mid-term Essay 20%
Group project (might be subdivided into smaller pieces to result in a portfolio) 25%
Final Essay 40%
Reading list
(subject to change) Matthews, John A. and David T. Herbert. 2008. Geography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Other readings are listed in the weekly outline and will be made available digitally. These will include chapters from stand-alone academic books, edited volumes, and journal articles.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
s.e.hinman@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
The first reading will be communicated via email in the week before the class begins.