0000608 - Geographic knowledge and introduction to cartography

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course provides foundational knowledge for framing the key themes and issues that define contemporary geography, which encompasses a range of territorial, theoretical, and applied knowledges that have diversified throughout the millennia of Western cultural history. This course aims to equip students with the critical tools to interpret the socio-political, cultural, and economic dynamics that permeate global spaces and the various territorialities that characterize them. The second and final part of the course specifically addresses the languages of cartography and the role of cartographic representations throughout history, with the goal of acquiring essential competencies for reading territory through geodetic cartography. This will lay the groundwork for subsequent learning of cutting-edge information technologies in cartography (e.g., GIS and GPS).

The objectives and expected outcomes focus on:

• The acquisition of basic methodological competencies in the diachronic analysis of territorial structures and spatial formations.

• The ability to observe the evolving relationships between society and territory at different scales, also within a transcalar perspective.

• An understanding of the cultural processes that have evolved within different geopolitical and geo-economic contexts, also serving as a foundation cultural mediation in areas of language learning and for teaching the languages of world regions within schools.

ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING/Application skills

Students are expected to demonstrate the ability to critically rework the topics presented, utilizing the specific lexicon of the discipline, and analyze cartographic representations relevant to the issues addressed.

Argumentation should be coherent and display a methodologically grounded understanding of territorial, social, political, and economic dynamics in the contemporary world, through appropriate scaling transitions, while considering the ongoing transformations in the global context from both a historical and socio-spatial perspective.

A key focus will be the conceptualization of the following thematic areas:

·        Space, place, territory, territoriality. environment-society relations.

·        Ecological problems at the global scale.

·        The formation of the modern State, processes of regionalization, supranational organization, EU rescaling policies; the main theories of political geography and geopolitics.

·        Development theories in the 20th century, territorial effects of development policies, critiques of the capitalist development model.

·        Demographic trends and human mobility.

·        Rural geography, agricultural and industrial supply chains, financialization of the economy.

·        Development theories, global social and territorial inequalities.

·        Urban geography, urban systems, and networks.

·        Material and immaterial communication networks, logistics, and transformations in tourism flows.

ADDITIONAL EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES

Judgment autonomy:

Mastery of fundamental themes in human geography across territorial scales and the essential geo-cartographic representation methods, underpinned by a conscious critical elaboration.

Communication skills:

Acquisition of the discipline-specific language for contextualizing contemporary global phenomena, linking different geographic themes in a transcalar and multicultural framework.

Learning skills:

Autonomy in learning and judgment will be fostered through guided study of the required texts. At the conclusion of the course, students should demonstrate the ability to learn through a historical-geographic lens, with a sophisticated understanding of key concepts, diverse approaches in human geography, and the interdisciplinary role geographic knowledge can assume.