Module GEOG2451: GEOGRAPHY: A CHANGING DISCIPLINE

Department: GEOGRAPHY

GEOG2451: GEOGRAPHY: A CHANGING DISCIPLINE

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To provide a historical perspective on the development of geography as a discipline and to identify key stages in its evolution.
• Promote an appreciation of the nature of geography and the relationships between physical and human geography.
• Highlight the contribution made by geographical research to the development of knowledge in other social and physical sciences.

Content

• Topics covered will typically include: Introduction.
• Mapping and Exploration: the Imperial Histories of the Discipline.
• The Regional Legacy.
• Geographers and Statecraft.
• Geography as Spatial Science.
• Radical Geographies.
• Structure and Agency - Society and Space.
• Social theory and the Spatial Turn.
• Geographic futures: what place and role for human geography today.
• From human to physical geography.
• The Physical World - Greek and Roman geographies.
• Geology and the history of the Earth.
• Geographical geomorphologies Davis and Gilbert.
• Positivism and Physical Geography.
• The Quantitative Revolution.
• Scientific method.
• Scales of enquiry: generalism to reductionism.
• Patterns in nature - physical geography and a spatial science.
• Technology and research.
• Reuniting the whole - geography as a discipline.

Learning Outcomes

• On successfully completion of this module students will be able to: Locate the current discipline of Geography in the context of its historical development.
• Identify key figures in the emergence of Geography as an academic discipline.
• Show a broad knowledge of the evolution of approaches employed in human and physical geography research.
• Discuss the changing relationship of Geography and geographical ways of knowing to other disciplines in the social and physical sciences.
• Describe the current structure of the discipline, its institutional organisations and directions of present and future research.
• Demonstrate a critical awareness of Geography's diversity as well as its unifying themes.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The lectures will provide students with an overview of the development of the discipline of Geography and an in-depth discussion of the diversity of approaches adopted in human and physical geography research through time.
• They will highlight the diversity of the discipline, while stressing its unifying themes.
• Three joint lectures (start, middle and end) involving all teaching staff will give continuity across the discipline.
• Understanding of these themes will be assessed in the unseen written examination [Outcomes 1-6].
• The practical and linked tutorial will give students the opportunity to investigate in more depth a chosen sub-field of the discipline by focusing on the contribution of one key figure [Outcome 2].
• Formative feedback will be given and each biographical sketch will be published on DUO as a shared resource.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Biographical project.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University