Geografia Cultural dos EUA / Cultural Geography of the USA

LAC 2217

6

1

2

Margarida Vale de Gato

English

The main purpose of this curricular unit is to master and develop critical concepts of US cultural, human and culturally construed natural geography. Combining these concepts with practical examples will contribute to a better understanding of the positions of “America” as nation and imagination:  its human and cultural diversity, its interdependence with bio-regional non-human species, its geopolitical ambitions, its negotiations with the border/lands, and its responsibilities in the Anthropocene. 

A first part of the program will be divided into the historical and political background for regional divisions of landscapes and human-(es)scapes in the US, while a second part will address frameworks for the developments of environmental humanities, especially ecocriticism and ecopoetics since the 1960s. Yet a third part will be dedicated to the study of the “transnational turn” in American Studies in what concerns ecology and the environment, addressing on the one hand the relation with(in) America(s) and, on the other hand, transatlantic links with Europe and especially with Portugal – all of these strongly based on cultural and literary texts, as the professor’s background is in literature.

Students will study the semiotic construal of endemic and transitory identities, of inter-species divisions and dynamics, and of permeable and overdetermined keywords such as “border(s)”, “frontier(s)”, “nature,” “bioregionalism,” “green economy” or “transatlanticism”. Students are expected to participate in classes with critical readings of assigned texts, and to prepare interventions in debates; they will also produce short written commentaries and complete one final essay or creative (and reflective) project.

Participation in class and in the blog – 20%

Test – 24%

Midterm commentary: 13%

Oral presentation – 13%

Final project – 30% (work plan is worth 5 %)

ANDERSON, Jon. Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces. Routledge, 2015.

ANDERSON, Lorraine. Literature and the Environment: a Reader on Nature and Culture, 2^nd ed. Pearson Education, 2012.

BURGETT, Bruce, and Glenn Handler, eds. Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 3^rd ed. New York UP, 2020.

GILLIAN, Carol A. and Gregory J. Segreti, American Studies: an Introductory Reader. Kendall Hunt, 2010.

JOHNSON, Nuala C, R. H. Schein, and J. Winders, eds. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

SNYDER, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. North Point Press, 1990.