Kim England

Teaching

 

 

NOTE: Online access to all course materials is via UW Catalyst Tools and the links generally only work in the quarters I am teaching the classes.

 

 

GEOG277: GEOGRAPHIES OF CITIES

This course will develop your understanding of the geographic nature of urbanization, urban systems (inter-urban geography) and the internal spatial patterns and activities within cities (intra-urban geography).  Particular emphasis is placed on the US and Canadian experience, although examples will be occasionally drawn from other regions of the world.  The course will explore: (1) system of cities – their location, distribution, and functions; (2) their internal structure – the location of activities within urban areas, including housing, economic activities and social geography; and (3) shed light on the major issues and problems facing contemporary urban society.

 

 

GEOG342: GEOGRAPHY OF INEQUALITY

This course considers the geographies of social, political and economic inequalities.  The focus will usually be on urban areas, although other spatial scales will also be examined.  The course begins with discussions of the theoretical underpinning of ‘inequality’.  The remainder of the course builds on these ideas by exploring topics such as the spatial distribution of wealth and poverty, and the geographies of exclusion and discrimination in employment and housing.  Particular emphasis is placed on the US and Canadian experience, although some examples are drawn from other regions of the world, especially Britain.

 

 

GEOG 476: WOMEN AND THE CITY

This course explores the reciprocal relations between gender relations, the layout of cities, and the activities of urban residents.  Topics include: feminist theory and geography (women, gender, and the organization of space); women and urban poverty, housing and homelessness; paid employment; geographies of childcare; and women and urban politics.  Particular emphasis is placed on the US and Canadian experience, although some examples are drawn from Europe, especially Britain.

 

 

GEOG 495: GEOGRAPHY OF DIFFERENCE

How do spaces and places operate in relation to the processes and politics of gender, class, ‘race’, ethnicity, age, (dis)ability, sexuality, and national identities?  How do different institutions, processes and practices (re)shape these identities and these spaces?  This course critically examines the ways in which social relations, social identities, and social inequalities are produced, their spatial variation, and the role of space in constructing them.  We will explore the geographic dimensions of various facets of socially constructed categories of difference (such as gender, ‘race,’ and class) and the theoretical frameworks that geographers use to analyze them.

 

 

GEOG 525: ADVANCED QUALITATIVE METHODS

Examines why and how qualitative methods can be used to pursue research in geography. Includes considerations of theoretical, ethical, and political issues that arise with qualitative methods. Offers practice in various methods such as ethnography, focus groups, interviewing, discourse and content analyses, narrative analysis, and archival analysis.

 

 

GEOG 541: FEMINIST GEOGRAPHIES (actual content subject to change)

This graduate seminar explores major research themes in feminist geographies.  Particular attention is given to the concept that gendered identities and spaces are discursively (re)produced.  And as recent feminist scholarship emphasizes diversity and difference, the seminar highlights the intersections between gender, ‘race,’ ethnicity, sexuality, class, and other social identities and divisions.  This seminar draws on English language literature that focuses on North America and Western Europe.  A typical seminar covers the history of feminist geography since the 1970s, current debates regarding appropriate methodologies in feminist geographies, and feminist geographers’ research around questions to do with the home, gendering everyday spaces, workplaces, the body, and the nation and globalization.

 

 

GEOG 577: Internal Spatial Structure Of Cities: URBAN INEQUALITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND DIFFERENCE (Sp 2011)

This seminar will address questions of urban inequality and social difference with the aim of making sense of why urban inequalities persist and how they operate in and through cities and urban spaces.  The role of community activism around social justice in American cities is addressed, as is the strategic engagement with existing structures of governance and public policies, along with the ongoing efforts to transform them.

 

 

 

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