This course focuses on the international and cross-national perspectives of political geography. It deals with political, economic and social aspects of international relations from a geographical perspective and examines the post Cold War and post 9-11 world. As such, the course has an integrative character and requires basic knowledge about international affairs. Frequent reading of a substantive newspaper or magazine, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, the Economist or the BBC News webpage (news.bbc.co.uk) would help significantly to acquire (or develop) knowledge of global locations and current events.
The course is designed for the upper-division level. It surveys some important aspects of the discipline of political geography but does not engage in a systematic survey of regional issues and conflicts. Instead, case studies of contemporary developments, including the role of nationalism in global South states, the geopolitics of rising powers like China and India, and the causes of environmental and natural resource conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are used to illustrate key concepts from the lectures and readings.