Uneven geographies of the US 4219-SH0045
The course takes a close look at spatial and environmental injustices in the US through several local, regional and global cases. It highlights historical roots of these injustices, their contemporary social consequences, and social movements that counter them. It covers a wide range of locations and social groups but places a special emphasis on Indigenous and Black communities. The class combines a short lecture with a conversation about weekly readings. The readings include academic texts from the domains of social geography and history, primary sources (e.g., memoirs, testimonies, and interviews) in various formats, maps, and, additionally, songs and music videos.
The list below includes exemplary class topics, which may differ from year to year:
• Coal mining, poverty and worker's movements in Appalachia
• The Rust Belt: urban decline and revival
• Pipelines over Indian land
• Hawai’i, from colonization to overtourism struggles
• Housing affordability crisis and gentrification
• The struggle over streets: are they for cars or pedestrians?
• Migrations and migrant workers
• Barrio Logan and Chicano Park: urban freeways, environmental justice and ‘gentefication’
• The Great Migration of African Americans
• Post-Katrina New Orleans
• ‘Dumping in Dixie’ and the origins of environmental justice movement
• Redlining and residential segregation
• The New Jim Crow? Mass incarceration and police brutality towards Black people
• Silicon Valley’s private cities of the future
• Neocolonialism and the global unequal exchange
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge:
- Understands the need to draw on sociology and social geography in order to create foundations and contexts for research on the culture of the United States
- Knows the basic features of social structures and understands the principles of their functioning in the United States, especially in the context of social, spatial and environmental justice
- Knows the social specificity of the United States and how the multiculturalism and multinationality of its inhabitants are related to social, spatial and environmental inequalities
- Knows and understands the place and role of the United States in international political and economic relations, including relations with indigenous nations
Skills:
- Is able to recognize, understand, interpret, explain and analyze the causes and course of processes and phenomena related to social, spatial and environmental inequalities in the United States
- Is able to formulate and solve complex and unusual problems concerning issues of American culture using sources from sociological sciences and social geography
- Is able to identify, describe social phenomena and manifestations of social culture in the United States using basic theoretical tools and methods from sociological sciences and social geography
- Is able to critically interpret content about the United States from the media and other sources
- Is able to use interdisciplinary knowledge in the field of American studies to formulate their own opinions, and recognize its importance in solving cognitive and practical problems
Assessment criteria
1. Independent analysis and discussion of the assigned text (60%)
2. Attendance and activity during classes (40%)
Bibliography
Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.
Bullard, R. D. (2000). Dumping in Dixie: Race, class and environmental quality. Westview Press
Delgado, E., & and Swanson, K. (2021). Gentefication in the barrio: Displacement and urban change in Southern California. Journal of Urban Affairs, 43(7), 925–940.
Estes, N. (2024). Our history is the future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the long tradition of Indigenous resistance. Haymarket Books.
High, S. C. (2003). Industrial sunset: The making of North America’s rust belt, 1969-1984. University of Toronto Press.
Kahn, K. (1973). Hillbilly Women: Mountain Women Speak of Struggle and Joy in Southern Appalachia. Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Klein, N. (2008). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. Penguin Books.
Lipsitz, G. (2011). How racism takes place. Temple University Press.
Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation
Wilkerson, I. (2011). The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America’s great migration
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: