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People Places Landscapes 3/23/2015 4:48:00 PM
03/23/15
Geographic approach: space and place
“The why of where”
The study of geography involves the study of earth as created by natural
forces and modified by human action.
Seeks to understand and study the spatial organization of human
activity and people’s relationship with their environment.
Human geography
Focuses on spatial patterns and spatial organization
Focuses on human interactions with their environment
Focuses on the importance of place.
Space and place
Space: notions of location, distance, and area are all part of space.
Place: specific geographic settings. Spaces with meaning attached
to them.
03/25/15
1st law of geography
everything is related to everything else, but near things are more
related than are distant things.
Friction of distance: the deterrent or inhibiting effect of distance on human
activity
Distance decay: the rate at which a particular activity or phenomenon
diminishes with increasing distance
Types of maps
Reference maps
o Show the location of places and geographic features
Thematic maps
o Typically show the degree of some attribute or indicate
movement
Location
Absolute location
o Precise position of a feature, as described by coordinates like
latitude and longitude
Relative location
o Description of the position of a place relative to another
feature
Site and situation
Site
o The physical attributes of a location (soil, vegetation, and
landscape)
Situation
o Location as defined relative to other places and human
activities (proximity to settlements, position in road networks.
Emphasis is often on accessibility).
Making maps
All maps are representations of reality.
Mapmakers must necessarily be selective to some degree
Map projections
No map can preserve area, distance, shape, proximity, and
direction.
The mapmaker must decide which projection provides the optimal
compromise for his purposes. In particular, does (s)he want to
preserve area or shape?
GIS (and remote sensing)
Layers of mapped information, each on a different theme
GIS can be queried to integrate the info from these datasets
03/30/15
Types of maps
Point maps
o A symbol, often a dot, is placed on the map to represent
every case.
o In some cases the point symbol can be made larger or
smaller to show different number of cases in different places.
Line maps
o A line is used to show the direction of a flow
o The width of the line can be used to show the volume of the
flow.
Chorpleth maps
o Shows characteristics of particular areas
o Data are divided into several categories
o Each category is then given a different shade of particular
color to represent it on the map.
04/01/15
The changing global context
Globalization
The increased interconnectedness of the world that has come about
through expansion of the global economy into a worldwide network.
Time-space convergence
Reduction of time needed to travel and communicate between
places as a result of improving technology and infrastructure over
time.
Flattening
Refers to the time-space compression that has occurred that means
that it is now easy and cheap to manufacture goods overseas.
Note that the world is not completely flat, some parts are flatter
than others. In other words, there are winners and losers in the
process.
Agricultural revolution
Increase in food produced per person meant that some people
could do things other than find food, these people could become
specialist craftsmen.
Settling in one place meant that people could accumulate more
goods, like cloth, pots, tools, etc.
State-level societies
With increasing specialization of labor, a governmental elite
eventually emerged in some communities.
Earliest state-level societies may have been communities based
around waterways as some form of central government was needed
to direct the massive irrigation projects.
Capitalism
Capitalism means that in the world economy, people, corporations,
and states produce goods and exchange them on the world market,
with the goal of achieving profit.
Colonialism
Colonialism involves the establishment and maintenance of political
and legal dominance by a state over a separate and alien society.
International division of labor
Specialization of different regions or countries in the production of
different goods.
Specifically, colonies specialized in raw materials and food stuffs,
which helps the colonizers to specialize in manufactured goods.
Each country/region to specialize in goods for which they had a
comparative advantage.
Modernization theory
Traditional society, preconditions for takeoff, takeoff, drive to
maturity, high mass consumption.
Societies are at different stages along a path to development
All societies seen as having the potential to develop
All societies should follow western model of economic development,
as this has worked in the past.
Dependency Theory
The world is split into poor countries and rich countries.
The nature of the political economic relationship between these
countries limits the development possibilities of poorer areas, while
sustaining the growth of the richer areas.
Dependency Theory scholars include Raul Prebisch and Andre
Gudner Frank.
Terminology
Developed and developing, udner developed, or less-developed
countries.
High income and low income countries
Core and periphery
Western nations
Global North and Global South
First, second, third worlds.
04/06/15
Population Geography, trends
Population geography
Population distribution and change
Population structure: fertility and mortality
Migration
Population and resources
The “problem” of growing population
Demographic momentum
o The potential for a population to continue to expand despite
reproductive rates being reduced, as a large population
moves into its child-rearing years.
Population distribution
o 90 lives on 10 of land area
o 90 lives north of the equator
o most people live near water
o 80 live below 500m altitude
The “problem” of aging population
Dependency ratio
o The ration between the working population (defined by age,
15-64) and the dependent population (under 15 and over 65).
Rates
o A measure quoted against another quantity or measure
04/08/15
Population theories
Theory 1, Thomas Malthus
Wrote “An essay on the principles of population”
Population increases geometrically, food only production only
increases arithmetically.
Eventually, population will outstrip food.
Preventative checks: moral restraint and vices (e.g. birth control)
Positive checks (those that affect death rates): misery, disease,
famine, and war.
Widespread poverty
Poverty associated with the will of God, earth viewed as a place of
punishment
Reaction to Utopianism
Beginning of industrial Revolution
Criticisms
o Does not allow for technological developments to increase
food supply
o Ignores all necessities except food
o Failed to foresee expansion in trade
o Did not accept the possibility of people voluntarily increasing
preventative checks
Neo-Malthusians: Paul Ehrlich, Garrett Hardin
o See population growth as leading to environmental problems
o Supports birth control
Theory 2: Ester Boserup
Danish economist, published the conditions of agricultural growth
Opposed Malthus’ views
Argued that population growth stimulates agricultural and technical
innovations, so food production keeps pace with population growth.
Perspective 2, Optimistic Economists
o Population growth and consumption are not harmful per se
o Instead they provide more innovators and the stimulus to find
solutions to the environmental problems.
o Primarily an economic approach
Criticism
o Will human ability to increase food production by innovation
be able to keep pace with population growth forever?
o Is forcing people to work harder and innovate more and more
rapidly desirable?
Theory 3: Karl Marx
Argued that no such thing as overpopulation exists
Instead it is misdistribution of resources that keeps poor people
poor.
Criticism
o
o
Theory 4: Demographic Transition Model
Population increases, birthrate decreases, death rate decreases.
Criticism
o Too simplistic
o It suggests that low income countries will necessarily follow
the same path as the West
o It implies that high rates of population growth are
undesirable.
04/12/15
First agricultural revolution (8,000 to 7,000 BC)
Desirable food crops were selected and grown at the expense of
other plants.
Creation of early hybrid plants e.g. emmer (bread wheat)
Domestication of animals
Subsistence farmers
Agriculturalists who produce most of what they consume and
consume most of what they produce.
Soils
Agriculture requires from the soil
o Nutrients from minerals
o Biomass (humus) to maintain soil structure and release
further nutrients
Sources of minerals:
o Volcanic ash
o Glaciation scouring rock surfaces
o Water courses carrying matter (alluvial soils)
Intensive agriculture
High yields from small land area. Requires high levels of nutrients
(either naturally or artificially added), and supports high population
densities, e.g. Nile Valley.
Extensive agriculture
Large areas of land needed to support low density populations.
Often undertaken in areas with poor soils, e.g. sheep stations of
Australian outback.
Early agricultural improvements (2,500 BC to 1600 AD)
Partly a result of extending the area under cultivation
(Extensification)
Partly a result of innovations that allowed intensification of
production:
o Use of organic fertilizers and fodder
o Application of irrigation water
o Development of metal tools and plow
o Use of crop rotation and fallow period
Environmental consequences
Loss of biodiversity
Deforestation and land use change
Soil erosion and overgrazing
Second agricultural revolution (1,600 to 1900 AD)
Intensification of farming as laborers moved to undertaking
industrial work, began in Europe
Involved
o Increase in size of plots
o New breeds of animals
o New crops introduces from overseas
o Mechanization e.g. reaper, steel plow, steam power
o More advanced techniques of soil preparation, crop care and
harvesting.
o Development of a commercial market for food.
04/15/15
Cash crops
A crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the
grower.
Generally exploitative of cash crop growers
The green revolution
Started late 60s early 70s
New hybridized crop varieties
o Wanted to make more productive crops
Aim was to eliminate hunger by improving crop performance
Involved five elements of intensification:
o Mechanization
o Pesticides
o Irrigation
o New hybridized crop varieties
o Chemical fertilizers
Success of Green Revolution
Population grew rapidly, but food supply grew even more quickly.
o 1950s: 14 million tons of food worldwide; approx. 3 billion
people.
o 1990s: 144 million tons of food worldwide; approx. 5.5 billion
people
Advantages
Hugh increase in good production through intensification of
production
Long term sustainability of production facilitated by artificial inputs.
Environmental Problems
Salinization of soil
Aquifers drying up
Top soil erosion
Soil nutrient depletion
Pollution of waterways
Pesticide-resistant species
Dams
Practical problems
Distribution and storage problems
Interdependency issues, e.g. fertilizer often requires irrigation. Very
expensive to supply all necessary inputs.
Only enough food on global scale; regionally, population is growing
considerably faster than food production in some areas.
Social problems
Not everyone was included in the “Green Revolution” e.g. people in
remote areas, the illiterate
Forced everyone into the cash economy.
Possible solutions
Improve efficiency
o Develop more efficient ways to apply fertilizers, pesticides,
and irrigation water
o Aim: get the benefits without the negative environmental and
economic consequences of overuse
E.g drip irrigation, use of vegetation belts along streams
to absorb excess pesticides.
Genetic engineering
o In many ways an extension of hybridization techniques
o Develop new, higher-yielding, hardier, faster-growing crop
varieties
o Develop crop varieties with “pesticide genes”
o Develop crop varieties that produce nutrient-rich foods, e.g.
Vitamin A-rich rice
o A third green revolution
Other
o Urban agriculture
o Encourage people to eat lower down the food chain
o Organic and Fair Trade goods
o Integrated food production systems, e.g. intercropping
Different crops use different nutrients
Different harvesting seasons
Leguminous crops can fix nitrogen in soil
Larger plants can protect the soil from sun, wind and
rain and allow smaller crops to be grown underneath.
Fewer pest outbreaks
If one crop fails, there are alternative
Crops likely to mature at different times (year round
income)
Can provide farmer with a balanced diet
May provide supplemental non-agricultural income for
farmer (Shea nut sales)
Our Dynamic Earth 3/23/2015 4:48:00 PM
03/24/15
Coastal processes
Hazards
Wild animals
Dangerous landscapes
Five major hazards
Storm surge
Tsunami
Erosion
o Main source is the ocean
o The process whereby materials of the earth’s crust are
loosened, dissolved, or worn away and simultaneously moved
to another area
o Landscape of coastal erosion
Sea cliff
Wave cut notch
Sand, pebbles, and boulders
Beach face
o Differential cliff erosion: sea stacks, sea caves, and arches
Currents
o Rip currents
Sea level rise
Waves and wind
Wind is the ultimate power source for waves
Wave size is determined by: speed, duration, and fetch
Rogue wave
Constructed interference
One, unusually large wave
Plunging breaker, steep beach
Spilling breaker, gradually sloped beach
Beaches
Offshore
Nearshore
Foreshore (waterline)
Berm
Backshore (high-water line)
03/26/15
Coastal erosion
Mitigation
Groins
Beach nourishment
Two construction related responses to coastal erosion:
Hard stabilization
o Sea wall
o Groins
o Jetties/breakwaters
o Riprap
o Traps sand without needing to be artificially replenished
o But can lead to greater erosion downstream and lead to
changed water flow patterns
Soft stabilization
o Beach nourishment
o Does not lead to erosion downstream, may replenish
downstream
o Very expensive, needs regular replenishing
Non-construction approach
Zoning
Pilings to elevate houses
03/31/15
Biogeography and climate
Climate: long-term atmospheric conditions of a place
Weather: short-term atmospheric conditions of a place
Climate defined by two main factors
Temperature
Precipitation
Five factors for temperature
Latitude
Elevation
Continentally
Ocean currents
Cloud cover
Three factors for temperature
Orographic effects, prevailing winds
Continentality
Atmospheric pressure belts
Major climate groups
A – Tropical Humid
B – Dry
C – Mild mid latitude
D – Severe mid latitude
E – Polar
H – Highland
Biomes: Regions of the world with similar climates and plants/animals
associated with them
1. Tropical rainforest
2. Dry broadleaf
3. Dry coniferous
4. Temperate, broadleaf forests
5. Temperate coniferous forests
6. Boreal forests/taiga
7. Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrub lands
8. Temperate grasslands, savannas, an shrub lands
9. Flooded grasslands and savannas
10. Montane grasslands and shrub lands
11. Tundra
12. Mediterranean forests, woodlands and scrub
13. Deserts and Xeric shrub lands (evaporation exceeds rainfall)
14. Mangroves
04/07/15
Climate Change
Glaciation
We are currently in a relatively cool period of earth’s history.
Why does climate change?
Natural climate forcing, Climate variability
Milankovich Cycles (climate forcing from changes in Earth’s orbit)
o There appeared to be cycles that lasted 10000 years. The
orbit around the sun changes, the tilt and speed changes.
o Eccentricity
The change between circular and elliptical orbit, the
change in solar radiation from distance.
o Tilt (40,000 cycle)
o Precession (26,000 years
Solar forcing
o There may be variations in the sun’s output
Volcanic forcing (particulates)
o The year without a summer
Evidence of past climate change
Instrumental records begin in 1850s, proxy data used for prior
time.
o Dendroclimatology
Tree growth rings show climate changes (narrow for
cold, wide for warm)
o Ice Cores
Bubbles of gas in ice can tell us the composition of the
atmosphere.
o Ocean sediments
Can contain small fossils,
o Pollens
Lots of warm weather pant pollen means warm climate,
cool weather plant pollen means cooler climate.
o Coral
Isotopes
Anthropogenic forcing
Emission of greenhouse gases is warming the Earth
Emission of particulate pollutants is cooling the earth (global
dimming) this may be offsetting up to 50% of the temperature rise
we would otherwise see from greenhouse gas emissions.
Impacts of climate change
Mitigation
04/14/15
Excess water
Cryosphere: permafrost, sea ice, ice caps, glaciers, and ice sheets.
Glacial processes
Pleistocene Glaciation
Formed by compacted snow
o Water vapor, snowflakes, granular snow, neve, glacier ice.
Glacial budgets
Accumulation, ablation (loss of snow)
Glacial freezing and melting
o Now we see less accumulation and more melting, resulting in
smaller (shrinking) budgets.
Surface melt
o Lowers albedo
Basal slip
o Glaciers are constantly moving down hill.
o Fastest flow is in the plastic middle
o Tension between the two layers creates crevasses
Permafrost melting
Methane is stored in permafrost, as it melts methane is released.
Sea Ice Melting
Sea level rise
o Increased flooding
o Relative sea level
Subsidence
Tectonic activity
Isostatic rebound
Tectonic activity
o Coral can’t survive if they are too deep (away from the sun)
Tipping points and abrupt climate change
May result from:
o A rapid change of sea level as a result of the collapse of ice
sheets
o Abrupt changes in ocean circulations
o Rapid release of methane from methane hydrate deposits in
permafrost and ocean sediments
Jewish Humor: Origins and Meaning 3/23/2015 4:48:00 PM
03/26/15
Henri Bergson
1920s Nobel prize winner
Philosophy predates Freud by a few years
Humor, as a source for laughter, can teach us about the world we
live in.
Approaching laughter as social and psychological phenomenon.
Three observations
The concept of the comic is human
o “That the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is
strictly HUMAN.”
The absence of feeling
o We numb our empathy
o Laughter has no greater foe than emotion
“To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic
demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the
heart. Its appeal is to intelligence, pure and simple.”
There is some utility to humor’s function in society
Laughter “corrects men’s manners.”
The aim is a general improvement
Keeping to the social codes
Humor is socially utilitarian
Incongruity of humor
We expect one thing, and get another
“Hence those definitions which tend to make the comic into an
abstract relation between ideas: “an intellectual contrast,” “a
palpable absurdity,” etc.—definitions which, even were they really
suitable to every form of the comic, would not in the least explain
why the comic makes us laugh.”
Incongruity (Kant), hostility (Hobbes), superiority (Socrates)
Hobbes: the small minded laugh at the imperfection of others.
Hostility expression of humor
Aligns himself with Socrates
SMART WORDS
Hebephrenic
Laughter that is uncontrolled and is not from a humor
Mementomori
Daily reminders of mortality, skull on desk
Atomization
Separate culture, Manhattan vs. suburb
03/31/15
The three central points of Bergson’s essay on humor is that first, the
concept of comic is human. He argues that no other species laughs like
humans do, and beyond that humans only laugh at what is human. This isn’t
to say we don’t occasionally laugh at other animals or rocks, but this is
because they remind us of something human. Second, humor is the absence
of feeling. To truly laugh, we must numb our empathy. And finally, humor
functions as a utility to society. Humor is corrective.
SMART WORDS
Pathos
Appealing to emotion rather than reason or logic
Catharsis
The release of sorrow and pity
Bathos
An effect of anticlimax
Defamiliarization
Taking the familiar, putting it in a new light to give it new meaning.
Uncanny
Strange, alien, unnatural
Talmud
The oral law
Torah
The five books of Moses, the Hebrew term for the books. Written
law
Tanakh
The books of the prophets and the writings. The Hebrew bible.
Midrash
Exegesis
Explanatory tradition.
Pilpul
Reductio ad absurdum
Taking something to the point of absurdity
So evidently there is nothing very benevolent in laughter. It seems rather
inclined to return evil for evil.
Humiliation is humor’s strongest means of correction
04/02/15
SMART WORDS
Hasidic
Kabbalah
Defenestration
Misogyny
Philosemitic
Allowing the misconception of being Jewish (Charlie Chaplin)
Judenwitz
Jewish humor
Shlemiel
Bumbling idiot
Shlimazel
Bad luck character
Deicide
Killing of god
The Jew as Pariah
An outcast people
The Pariah becomes a person in Jewish culture
They value the Pariah, despite the larger culture devaluing the
Pariah
Politically nonexistent
Jews as Pariah people have turned to art to re-appropriate the
term.
Heine “Disputation”
Expresses biting, satiric humor
Converted to Christianity to achieve better status, prominence.
First to allude to Jewish humor.
Judenwitz, anti-Semitic slur. German humor was the “dominant”
Introduced the term Shlemiel to German language.
Jews were made to debate Catholics on theology
o Because the Jews never won, it was shorthand for the catholic
oppression of the Jews.
o
U of comedy, inverted U of tragedy
04/07/15
The Jew as Pariah becomes a person of value despite perceptions of being
an outcast. In a way they are re-appropriating the term to their advantage.
Kafka
Born in 1883 to well off parents
Studied law
Worked in insurance agent throughout his life.
Caught tuberculosis, went to Austria, died in 1924.
Asked his friend to burn all of his manuscripts, Braud(?) edited and
published his work.
The only weapon of the pariah is thinking, against society, to
exposed the nothingness of society.
In his work: we see the drama of assimilation, the average Jew who
wants his rights as a human being.
Sholem Aleichem
Writes mostly in monologue
Typically a comic voice
Performative quality
Tevye the Dairyman
Hebrew is in italics
Has to do with frontier humor, Mark Twain.
o A man’s voice talking, associated with monologues
Today’s Children
Constantly keeping score with God (p. 44).
Humor comes in the contrast between the high and the low (Yiddish
and Hebrew?)
SMART WORDS
Implied author
We can’t say what the author actually thought; what the we infer
the author meant.
Convention
Unspoken agreement about a genre
Dialect
A particular way of using language. Stylized method of representing
speech.
Cheder
One room elementary school where you learn Hebrew
04/09/15
The little man is put upon, meek, pecked at, and yet admirable.
Tevye
Tevye
Little man chasing big ideas.
Hero because his character embodies the role of the individual in a
world of “systems” where the individual doesn’t matter.
Unbroken chain of humor influence into the American Mainstream
Sholem Aleichem Nat Hiker Larry David
Hodel: political revolutionary
Chava: marrying a non-Jew, converting to Christianity.
“Jewish humor is an instrument for turning pain into laughter”
SMART WORDS
Shtetl
Small town
Ashkenazi
Jews from central, eastern Europe, Russia.
Sephardi
Northern African Jews
Theodicy
To justify god’s ways to man. “Why do bad things happen to good
people”
Shiksu
Derogatory word for non-Jewish woman.
Shayge…
Derogatory word for non-Jewish man.
