Geography 3: Introduction to Cultural Geography

Fall 2016
Monday/Wednesday 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Moore 100
Professor: Lieba Faier
Office: Bunche 1150
Office Hours: Wednesday 1:45 p.m.-2:45 p.m. and by appointment. Please sign up for a slot on the
sheet outside my office or email me to set up an appointment outside my regular office hours.
Teaching Assistants:
Emma Colven
Hudson Spivey
Discussion 1A: Wed 2:00 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Discussion 1F: Thurs 10:00 a.m. 11:50 a.m.
Discussion 1D: Wed 4:00 p.m-5:50 p.m.Discussion 1H: Thurs 12:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m.
Diane Ward
Discussion 1B: Mon 4:00 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Discussion 1C: Tues 12:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m.

Jason Ward
Discussion 1E: Thurs 10:00 p.m.-11:50 p.m.
Discussion 1B: Thurs 12:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m.

Adina Matisoff
Discussion 1I: Fri 10:00 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
Discussion 1J: Fri 12:00 p.m.-1:50 p.m.
Why do people act certain ways in certain places? Why does the urban landscape of Los
Angeles look the way it does? Where does our garbage go? How can we understand connections
among peoples lives across the globe? If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions,
you have already started thinking like a cultural geographer. Cultural geographers are interested in
the relationships between people and their environments, and particularly in the cultural and social
dynamics of these relationships. In this class, you will develop an understanding of some of ways
cultural geographers think about the world, and you will gain a basic familiarity with some of the
conceptual tools they use.
The first half of the course will focus on questions of culture, power, and place. We will
learn to identify cultural and spatial processes, consider how relations of power shape these
processes, and explore how they differentially impact peoples lives. We will also explore how
spaces and places are culturally, and unequally, made. In the course of these explorations, you will
learn what cultural geographers mean when they use words like space, place, and
landscape. In the second half of the course, we will turn to questions of the global. We will first
consider the politics of environmentalism and assumptions about nature. Then we will focus on
transnational migration and commodity chains as forms of global interconnection, considering the
kinds of spatial relationships they involve. By the end of the course, you will be able to answer
the question, What is cultural geography? and, hopefully, you will see cultural geographies
everywhere!
Required Texts
1) Course Reader (Available for purchase ASUCLA and a limited number of copies will be on
reserve at Powell)
2) Reader copy of Herbert, Steve. 1997. Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police

Department. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Available for purchase at ASUCLA

and on reserve at Powell)
Course Requirements:
Reading Assigned Texts, Submitting Assignments, Coming to Class and Section Prepared,
and Participating in Class and Section Discussions are all mandatory!
Readings, lectures, and discussions are meant to work together. Lectures will offer context,
background, and explanations of the readings; readings will provide foundations for lectures.
Films will be included on exams. You will have trouble passing this course if you try to skip
readings, films, or class lectures.
Your grade in this class will be based on the following components:
25% In-Class Midterm Exam (Wednesday, October 26, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m. [regular class
time])
40% In-Class Final Exam (Friday, December 9, 2016, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM)
35% Discussion Section Participation and Assignments: Each student must be enrolled in and
attend a discussion section that meets once a week. You will be given a discussion section grade
that will be based on both your written work and your participation. The goal of these sections is
to clarify themes presented in lectures and readings. They are also intended to give you an
opportunity to formulate and articulate your interpretations of this material, to explore related
ideas that may have been stimulated by your readings and discussion, and to discuss experiences
that your class participation will help you identify as being geographically significant.
NOTE: All written section assignments are due BOTH on Turnitin AND in hardcopy. You
will not receive credit for a section assignment if it is not submitted to Turnitin.
Some Additional Notes:
1) You are encouraged to come to my office hours. I am happy to answer questions or
discuss material covered in lecture. Please sign up for a time on the office hours sign-up sheet
outside my office door. If you cannot make my office hours, please e-mail me about making an
appointment at another time. Because my schedule fills up quickly, please try to sign up or
contact me to make an appointment at least one week in advance of the time you would like
to meet.
2) Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated and will be handled in accordance with
university policy.
3) If you are having trouble in the course, please come speak with me or with your TA as
soon as possible. Our aim is to create a positive and productive learning environment for all.
4) There will be no make-up exams given unless you have a medical emergency. Such
emergencies require a written letter from your physician, which will be validated by the professor.
No exceptions.
5) I try to respond to emails promptly. If a week has passed and you havent received a
response from me, do email again as your initial message may not have gone through. You may
also try telephoning my office: 310-825-3525.
6) If you have special needs and require different accommodations to meet course
requirements, please speak with both your TA and me at the beginning of the course so appropriate
arrangements can be made.
7) In this course, issues that are sensitive or unfamiliar to some may arise. Our goal will
be to create an environment where everyone can freely express her or himself and feel comfortable

that her or his voice or opinion will be heard. Even if you do not agree with things others say,
mutual respect and tolerance will enhance everyones learning experience. Related, in the interest
or respecting others in the class, please turn off the ringer on your cell phone, beeper, or musical
device before you enter the classroom. Please arrive on timestudents who regularly arrive late
may be asked to leave classand please wait until discussions are over and class is dismissed
before packing up and leaving.
Course Schedule
I. Thinking about Culture, Power, and Place (Or The Social Lives of Place and Space and the
Politics of Location)
Sept 26, 28, (Oct 3)
Introduction: Place-making and Cultural and Embodied Senses of
Place
What do we mean by culture? What do we mean by space and place? How are our
experiences of place shaped by our cultural histories and our positioning within various relations
of power, such as gender, class, ethnicity, and citizenship?
Zimmerman, Jonathan. 2013. Colleges as country clubs. Los Angeles Times, April 21.
Massey, Doreen. 1998. The Spatial Construction of Youth Cultures. In Tracey Skelton and Gill
Valentine, eds., Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. New York: Routledge, 121-129.
Senses of place snippets from around the world:
From Hong Kong:
Law, Lisa. 2001. Home cooking. Section of Home Cooking: Filipino Women and
Geographies of the Senses in Hong Kong. Ecumene 8(3): 274-276.
From Papua New Guinea:
Feld, Steven. 1996. Bosavi Acoustemology: Bodily Unity of Environment, Senses, and Arts.
Section of Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New
Guinea. In Steven Feld and Keith Basso, eds., Senses of Place. Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press, 98-99.
From the U.K:
Hetherington, Kevin. 2003. Opening section from Spatial textures: place, touch, and praesentia.
Environment and Planning A 35: 1933-1934.
From Cibicue, Arizona:
Basso, Keith. 1996. Selection from Wisdom Sits in Places. Albuquerque, NM: University of New
Mexico Press, 8-35.
Oct 3, 5, (10)
The Rules of Place: Schools, Cities, and Shopping Malls as
Landscapes of Power and Difference
What kinds of cultural understandings and conventions inform spatial formations? How do
organizations of space and place shape peoples experiences, behaviors, and relationships?
Swentzell, Rina. 1997. Conflicting Landscape Values: The Santa Clara Pueblo and Day School.
From Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, Paul Groth and Todd W. Bressi, eds. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 56-66.

Grazian, David. 2008. On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1-13.
Gottdiener, Mark. 2003. Recapturing the Center: A Semiotic Analysis of Shopping Malls. In
Alexander R. Cuthber, ed., Designing Cities: Critical Readings in Urban Design. Blackwell
Publishing: 128-135.
Chin, Elizabeth. 2001. Hemmed In and Shut Out. From Purchasing Power: Black Kids and
American Consumer Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 91-116.
Schwartz, Nelson. Jan. 3, 2015. The Economics (and Nostalgia) of Dead Malls. The New York
Times.
Oct 10, 12, 17
Policing Urban Space: Territorial Control and Forms of Resistance in
Los Angeles
How do formal organizations of power, such as the police, work through practices of spatial
control? What shapes the ways the police understand and engage in these practices? How can we
make sense of resistance to these forms of control?
Johnson, James H., et. al. 1992. The Los Angeles Rebellion: A Retrospective View. Economic
Development Quarterly 6(4): 356-372.
Wines, Michael. May 5, 1992. Riots in Los Angeles: The President; White House Links Riots to
Welfare. The New York Times.
Reinhold, Robert. May 1, 1992. Riots in Los Angeles: The Blue Line; Surprised, Police React
Slowly as Violence Spreads. The New York Times.
Herbert, Steve. 1997. Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Film: L.A. is Burning
Oct 19, 24
Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Urban and Suburban Spaces
How do cultural ideas (about class, race, morality, discipline, hygiene, beauty, cleanliness,
community, and citizenship) shape the different ways people view urban and suburban space?
Szasz, Andrew. 2007. Introduction: Inverted Quarantine, Suburbanization as Inverted
Quarantine. 1-8, 56-95.
Schweik, Susan M. 2009. The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public. New York: NYU Press, 1-6, 291296.
Grabar, Henry. 2016. The Jane Jacobs School of Counterterrorism. Slate. Sept 19, 2016.
Available online:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/09/19/the_chelsea_bomber_was_partially_foiled_by_
scavengers_jane_jacobs_would.html
Nagourney, Adam. 2013. As Homeless Line Up for Food, Los Angeles Weighs Restrictions. The
New York Times, Nov. 25.

Saulny, Susan. 2012. Young, Unemployed and Living on the Street. The New York Times Dec.
18.
Navarro, Mireya. 2013. In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesnt Mean Having a Home. The
New York Times. Sept. 17.
Li, Wei. 1999. Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese
Ethnoburb in Los Angeles San Gabriel Valley. Journal of Asian American Studies 2(1): 1-28.
Video Clip from Baldwin Hills on BET
Oct 26

Midterm Exam

II. Geographies of Global Interconnection

Oct 31, Nov 2, 7
Rethinking Universals of Nature and
Environmentalism
What is environmental injustice? Who is bearing the greatest burdens of it? What relations of
power inform the making of natural landscapes and environmentalism? How about our
understandings of human and nonhuman or of wilderness and civilization? What kinds
of gaps do these categories involve?
Cole, Luke W. and Sheila R. Foster. 2001. Preface and Introduction. In From the Ground Up:
Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York
University Press, 1-18.
Pellow, David and Lisa Park. 2002. Selections from The Silicon Valley of Dreams:
Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High Tech Global Industry. New York: New
York University Press, 1-3, 59-61, 71-82, 112-121, 169-170, 174-177, 180-189.
Duhigg, Charles and David Barboza. 2012. In China, Human Costs are Built into an iPad. New
York Times, Jan. 25.
Spence, Mark David. 1999. First Wilderness: Americas Wonderland and Indian Removal from
Yellowstone National Park. In Dispossessing the Wilderness. New York: Oxford University Press,
55-70.
Tsing, Anna. 2004. Chapter 5: A History of Weediness. In Friction: An Ethnography of Global
Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 171-204.
Film: Global Dumping Ground
Nov 9, 14, 16
Spatialities of Migration: Borderlands, Transnationalisms, and
Diasporas
What does it mean to be a gatekeeping country? How did the US become one? How do
organizations of space, such as borders and national geo-bodies, shape migrants lives? What
kinds of cultural and spatial organizations are produced through migration?
Lee, Erika. 2002. The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American
Gatekeeping, 1882-1924. Journal of American History. 89(1): 54-86.

Anzaldua, Gloria. 1987. Selections from Borderlands, La Frontera. San Francisco, Aunt Lute
Books, 1-23, 77-91.
Coutin, Susan Bibler. 2003. Illegality and the Spaces of Nonexistence. Legalizing Moves:
Salvadoran Immigrants Struggle for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
27-48.
Chu, Julie. 2010. Chapter 1: To Be Emplaced: Fuzhounese Migration and the Geography of
Desire. From Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in
China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 31-58.
Film: Made in L.A./Hecho en Los Angeles
Nov 21, 23, 28, 30
Commodity Chains and Identities
What is a commodity? What is a commodity chain? How do commodity chains connect peoples
lives in different parts of the globe? What cultural ideas shape our participation in commodity
chains?
Cook, Ian et al. 2004. Follow the Thing: Papaya. Antipode. 642-664.
Guthman, Julie. 2003. Fast food/organic food: Reflexive tastes and the making of yuppie
chow. Social and Cultural Geography 4(1): 45-58.
Bell, David and Gill Valentine. 1997. Selections from Consuming Geographies: We are Where We
Eat. New York: Routledge, 1-2, and 167-171.
Pollan, Michael. June 4, 2006. Mass Natural. The New York Times.
Pollan, Michael. April 22, 2007. You Are What You Grow. The New York Times.
Estabrook, Barry. 2009. Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes. Gourmet 69(3): 40-42.
Greenhouse, Steven. 2014. In Florida Tomato Fields, a Penny Buys Progress. New York Times,
April 24.
Films: Food Inc. and Life and Debt
Final Exam

Friday, December 9, 2016, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM