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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2017/2018

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Geosciences : Geography

Undergraduate Course: Geographies of the Sea (EASC10088)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Geosciences CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course introduces the emerging field of maritime human geographies, focusing particularly on exploring the role of the sea and seafaring in the making of global worlds in the past and the present. Through a range of conceptually and empirically challenging ¿cuts¿ through the rich past and present of maritime matters, students will explore the manifold ways in which the seas have been, and continue to be, crucial arenas of human agency and interaction. In this course we will collectively analyse how the seas have been central to shaping relations between peoples and places. The course will be delivered primarily through interactive lectures, focusing on discussion and debate, with the addition of film screenings, and a student-led presentation seminar. The ultimate aim of this course is to provoke in students a more critical attitude towards the place of the seas and seafaring in different historical and contemporary contexts, and thereby foster a more nuanced and engaged understanding of the complex social, cultural and political processes that unfold in our world at different scales. In pursuit of this aim, students will be encouraged to develop a range of important skills and attributes around how information is gathered, organised, interrogated and presented, and to foster a critical and reflective approach to understanding this process.
Course description This course introduces the emerging field of maritime human geographies, focusing particularly on exploring the role of the sea and seafaring in the making of global worlds in the past and the present. Through a range of conceptually and empirically challenging ¿cuts¿ through the rich past and present of maritime matters, students will explore the manifold ways in which the seas have been, and continue to be, crucial arenas of human agency and interaction. In this course we will actively and collectively analyse and debate how the role of the seas in shaping relations between peoples and places. The course will be delivered primarily through interactive lectures, focusing on discussion and debate, with the addition of film screenings, and a student-led presentation seminar. The ultimate aim of this course is to provoke in students a more critical attitude towards the place of the seas and seafaring in different historical and contemporary contexts, and thereby foster a more nuanced and engaged understanding of the complex social, cultural and political processes that unfold in our world at different scales. In pursuit of this aim, students will be encouraged to develop a range of important skills and attributes around how information is gathered, organised, interrogated, presented, and evaluated, and to foster a critical and reflective approach to understanding this process.

Week by week outline:
1. All at sea: Introducing the 70% and the history of the present
2. Mariners: Mobility, knowledge and encounter
3. Oil and Bone: The Whale and Whaling
4. Sugar and Slaves: Globalisation, capitalism and labour
5. Pirates and Nations: Sovereignty and the limits of law
6. Wrecked: Perceptions of nature at sea
7. Student-led Seminar: Presentations and debate [including Film screening]
8. Containers and Things: Globalisation, capitalism and labour (again)
9. Docks and Beaches: The littoral geographies of the sea
10. Frozen Geopolitics: Icy and submarine geographies in the Arctic
11. Conclusions and revision
The course assessment will be formative and summative. Student presentations will be formatively assessed and one extended essay or research project and one exam paper will be formatively assessed.
There will be two film screening, associated with particular lectures in the course announced in lecture one. The films are Leviathan (2014) and The Forgotten Space (2011). The times and locations of the screenings will be agreed with the group where possible.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. To introduce emerging geographical app1. Explain some of the ways that geographical approaches to the study of the seas and seafaring are developing;
  2. Critically examiner a range of key social, political and cultural processes involved in making global worlds.
  3. Present empirically grounded and conceptually informed analyses of important issues in the past and the present through critical engagement with a range of materials
  4. Demonstrate advanced reserach and oral and written presentation skills.
Reading List
Benton, L. (2010) A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

Graham, B. and Nash, C. (Eds) (2000) Modern Historical Geographies (Longman, Harlow).

Linebaugh, P. and Rediker, M. (2000) The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Beacon Press, Boston).

Mack, J. (2011) The Sea: A Cultural History (Reacktion Books, London).

Ogborn, M. (2008) Global Lives: Britain and the World, 1550-1800 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

Peters, K. (2010), Future Promises for Contemporary Social and Cultural Geographies of the Sea, Geography Compass, 4 (9): 1260¿1272.

Peters, K. and Anderson, J. (2013) Waterworlds: Human Geographies of the Ocean (Ashgate, Farnham).

Steinberg, P. (2001) The Social Construction of the Ocean (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

Special Issues of Journals:
Oceans Connect, 1999, in The Geographical Review 89 (2)
Atlantic Geographies, 2005 in Social and Cultural Geography 6 (3)
Historical Geographies of the Sea, 2006, in The Journal of Historical Geography 32 (3)
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Group work; oral presentation; primary research and data gathering; writing
KeywordsSea,Historical,Globalisation,Place,Connections
Contacts
Course organiserDr William Hasty
Tel: (0131 6)50 2526
Email: William.Hasty@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Kirsty Allan
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: Kirsty.Allan@ed.ac.uk
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