This course will examine the foundations of politics, including classical Greek thought, the rise of liberal democracy in America. This course will also examine modern totalitarianism and the challenges it has posed to democracy in the 20 th Century. Emphasis will be on the central concepts and questions of politics, such as authority, liberty, equality, as well as the origin, nature, institutional structure, and the purpose of government. Special attention will be paid to connections between the study of politics and other social sciences. Two 5-page papers, midterm, final exam, and class participation.
All human activities take place somewhere, and have spatial and locational attributes.
Geography is the study of the spatial, and to some extent chronological, aspects of human activities. We will use a variety of geographic tools to analyze the nature and structure of social relationships, but will rely most heavily on maps. Topics include population, migration, cultural geography, development, agriculture, and urban and economic geography.