Human experience is based in space and time.
Experience is also rooted in specific places. Where do the phenomena
of human experience occur? Why are they there? What is the significance?
These questions are fundamental for those of us who want to know more about
the geography of the human world. to answer such questions--to understand
and explain the spatial and place-based component of experience-geographers
utilize various perspectives, concepts, methods, and techniques. This course
is an introduction to how geographers view the world and contribute to
our understanding of it.
The course is structured in a systematic fashion.
After an introduction to some key geographic concepts and issues, we will
study human experience through a series of cultural, urban, social, economic,
political, and environmental lenses. Throughout, our concerns will focus
on the spatial basis of society and its continual re-organization through
time. You will learn through a combination of lecture/discussion and laboratory
experience.
My aims for you are several. I want you to develop
a new perspective that enables you to more clearly see the role of space
and place in human experiences. In addition, you should obtain ideas and
skills from this course that you can utilize in other studies at Middlebury
and beyond. Finally, at the end of this course you should be able to use
geographic perspectives and methods to analyze and make decisions about
various real-world problems. Geography is involved in everything you do--and
it matters!
