Giography
Neoliberalism has given globalization a bad name. But the age after World War II has also produced détente – ironic word – the disappearance of blocs, and triggered the elimination of many obstacles to exchange and the massive facilitation of all forms of global interaction. Individual lives do not take place in a single geographical location, their episodes are increasingly dispersed. It is only logical that this revolution also demands a new type of biography: not a linear narrative based on sequential chapters, but a layering of simultaneous lives that are now lived in a range of fundamentally different cultures and environments, each engagement profound enough to require its own examination.
In that case, the single memoir becomes an implausible model, it needs to be replaced by a cluster-memoir, a stacking of almost independent stories that reconstruct the internal coherence, causalities, influences, encounters of each separate life.
This is the initial hypothesis on which this course is based. Out of a potential maximum of 10, it will focus on three “lives” in three places, and will inventory and interpret the experiences, characters, precedents, traditions, practices, histories in each, as crucial components of a new kind of cumulative identity.
If you have questions about the course (e.g., schedule, readings, assignments) please contact Phillip Denny.
Course Requirements:
This 1-unit course will have a series of four sessions in March and April. To receive credit for the course, students must submit weekly assignments and are required to attend all three live, online lectures from 8-10 AM on Tuesdays March 8, March 22, and April 12. Professor Koolhaas will hold an additional session and live q&a on April 14th at 6:30 PM. This final session will be open to non-enrolled students as well. To ensure spots in the room, enrolled students should plan on attending this in-person session and must notify the TF in advance if unable.
Students who enrolled in Geaugraphy during the spring 2021 semester may enroll in the course for credit again this year; this semester's course includes lectures on a range of new topics.
This course is not open to auditors or cross-registration.
Read these important enrollment instructions: If you are interested in enrolling in this 1-unit course, you must add the course to your Crimson Cart after the add/drop period ends on Wednesday, Setpember 14, as this one unit will likely push you over your maximum unit limit and impact your ability to enroll in other courses. In early October, you will be officially enrolled in the course from your Crimson Cart, even if that means you will exceed your maximum units. You do not need to receive program director approval for exceeding your maximum units for this course. Students may still add the course to their Crimson Cart prior to the first class meeting.
Please note that if enrolling in this course would have you exceed the following units by degree program, you will be charged extra tuition in late November:
20 – MDES
22 – MDE
24 – all other GSD programs
If you are a concurrent student, you would be considered among those who would be charged extra tuition if this course would mean that you would exceed 24 units.