What is GEOG 106 all about?
Processes of globalization may be homogenizing, yet they also contribute to increased fragmentation (witness the powerful, grassroots protests at the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle and Cancun, or the global diffusion of McDonald’s yet the reflection of local culture in McDonald’s menus around the world). This course takes as its pivot point the concept of geographical region. While examining the persistence of unique regions, the course will both scale up to global linkages and scale down to place-specific impacts of globalization processes. This course surveys major world regions by systematically considering five themes: environment, population and settlement patterns, cultural coherence and diversity, geopolitical fragmentation and unity, and economic and social development. Throughout the course, basic concepts of a geographic perspective (e.g., scale, diffusion, and human-environment interactions) are utilized to examine patterns of globalization as well as the uniqueness of place. The first two segments provide a conceptual foundation for the rest of the course.