Black Geographies

Catalog description

In this course, we will critically examine the production of race and ethnicity by and through various spatial scales. The course considers Black Geographies through two primary interrelated questions. How have methods, themes, and concepts from the discipline of geography used to recognize, identify, and enclose Blackness? Secondly, how do Black embodiments contest and transform space, both practically and theoretically (and how have these interventions been overlooked by the field of geography)? The course considers various topics within Black geographic scholarship including queer studies, racial capitalism, carceral geographies, and urban geographies. This course considers how Black feminist approaches to geographic space reveals methods of refusing and exceeding geographic enclosures. Students will work collaboratively in small groups to research, plan, and create their own audio-visual maps related to themes related to the course, by using free mapping programs like Esri ArcGIS Story Maps and podcasting tools. Course readings will draw from geography, sociology, Black studies, gender studies. In this course students will learn how to generate and articulate critical spatial analyses, understand fundamental concepts of race and uses of mapping informed by Black modes of thought, and collaborate with each other on a group project using digital mapping tools.