PhD course Social Theory and Geography 7.5 ECTS Spring 2013 3 modules in Uppsala (15-16 January), Lund (12-13 March) and Visby (16-18 April) Language: English Fees: SEK 2,500 (PhD-students from member departments of the National Programme No fee) Organised by: Christian Abrahamsson, Lund University, Brett Christophers, Uppsala University and Tom Mels, Gotland University Apply By sending an email to Christian Abrahamsson the latest by November 10 with your affiliations and short description (max. 250 words) of your research work. The first 20 (we could have more but then seminars will be tricky) applicants will be accepted, the other ones will be put on a waiting list. Aims The aim of the course is to analyse and understand the relations between social theory and geography, with a specific focus on a series of key debates that have characterised this relation over the past four decades. The course aims to enable individual postgraduate students to analyse and understand their own project in relation to larger debates within social theory. Objectives On completion of the course, the postgraduate student will be able to describe and analyse their own research projects in relation to broader social theoretic discourses and concepts. The postgraduate student will have acquired knowledge of how different theoretical perspectives and concepts can be brought to bear on their individual projects. They will also have a knowledge of how different debates have shaped and continue to shape geographical scholarship. Overall theme An argument could be made that the past four decades of geography has witnessed, for good or bad, an unprecedented closing of the gap between geography and the other social sciences. Yet geography is still perhaps more now than ever characterised by a strong drive towards synthesis between the natural and the human sciences. This course seeks to work through some of the implications for the relationship between geography and social theory. We are here talking about
social theory in its broadest form including both attempts to theorise the current moment of economic crisis to speculative philosophy that seeks to contemplate earthly processes. We argue that geography is perfectly placed, as a synthetic discipline, to provide answers and questions to a wide range of issues social, political, ecological, cultural etcetera. But to better understand geography s position we need to interrogate its relationship, past and present, with social theory. Such an interrogation could take the form of readings of a list of so-called master thinkers e.g. Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, Gilles Deleuze etcetera, etcetera. While not necessarily unproductive this approach would however miss a crucial point. This point is that any line of inquiry within the social sciences has to take its object of analysis as a starting point. This means that the use of theory has to be eclectic not by choice but by necessity. Given this we have chosen to organise the course around a set of key debates, or, perhaps key words in Raymond Williams s sense of the word. We think that these debates have had and continue to have large effects on the ways that geography is practiced and thus constituted as a discipline. This course would like to be a source of information and discussion around three key debates. space/place agency/structure nature/culture Schedule Uppsala Nature/culture Tuesday 15 January: 11.00-12.30: Introduction Social theory and geography (CA, BC, TM) 12.30-13.30: Lunch 13.30-15.00: Lecture 15.15-17.00: Lecture Wednesday 16 January: 8.15-10.00: Lecture 10.15-12.00: Lecture 13.00-14.30: Guided tour of Gustavianum and Domkyrkan 15.00-17.00: Seminar discussion Lund Agency/structure Tuesday 12 March 11.00-13.30: Lecture 13.30-15.00: Lecture
15.30-17.00: Seminar discussion Wednesday 13 March 9.00-10.30: Lecture 10.45-12.15: Lecture 13.15-14.45: Lecture 15.15-17.00: Guided tour of either Medicon or MAX-lab Visby Space/place Tuesday 16 April 13.00 13.30: 13.30 17.00: Seminar discussion Wednesday 17 April 10.00-12.00: Lecture 13.15 17.30: Excursion Thursday 18 April 9.30 10.45: Lecture 11.00-12.00: Seminar discussion 12.00-12.30: Concluding discussion Exam The exam will consist of a final paper (maximum 5000 words) that seeks to interpret the participants own research within the literature and the discussions of the class. The paper can be written in English or Swedish. The deadline for submission will be announced at the first meeting. Participants will get personal written feedback. The participants will also be expected to give short presentations of their own research during the course and actively participate during seminar discussions. Course literature (subject to change): For Uppsala: Braun Bruce & Castree, Noel (Eds.). Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium. London: Routledge, 1998. Demeritt, David. 1994 The Nature of Metaphors in Cultural Geography and Environmental History Progress in Human Geography 18 (3): 163-85
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Routledge, 1990. Watts, Michael, Robbins, Paul and Richard Peet (Eds.). Global Political Ecology. London: Routledge, 2010. Whatmore, Sarah. Hybrid Geographies: natures, cultures, spaces. London: Sage, 2002. (selected chapters) For Lund: Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Crampton, Jeremy & Elden, Stuart. Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. New York: Vintage Press, 1982. Mitchell, Timothy. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Sayer, Andrew. Realism and Social Science. London: Sage, 2000. For Gotland: Casey, Edward. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Entrikin, Nicholas. The Betweenness of Place: Toward a Geography of Modernity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Gibson-Graham, J-K. The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Gregory, Derek. Geographical imaginations. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. Olsson, Gunnar. Abysmal: A Critique of Cartographic Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Olwig, Kenneth, 2011, All that is landscape is melted into air: the aerography of ethereal space Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(3) 519 532.
Serres, Michel & Latour, Bruno. Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995. Sparke, Matthew. In the Space of Theory: Postfoundational Geographies of the Nation-State. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Teachers (additional names will be added) Christian Abrahamsson, Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Human Geography, Lund University Brett Christophers, Research Fellow, Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University Tom Mels, Reader in Human Geography, Gotland University Noel Castree, Professor in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Manchester Sebastian Abrahamsson, Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam Kirsten Simonsen, Professor in Human Geography, Department of Human Geography, Roskilde University (TBC)