A PEOPLE'S GEOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN EMPIRE
Spring 2007 quarter
Zoltán Grossman and Larry Mosqueda
The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA
A People's Geography of American Empire will look at U.S. expansion -- from "Manifest Destiny" and overseas imperialism, to present-day resource wars. The program will focus on the place-making processes inherent in each stage of expansion, and on the imprints they have left on the human and physical landscape. It will examine "imperial places" that have been shaped by each era of expansion, and in turn have shaped each era.
In addition to the origins and rationales underlying each stage of expansion, we will examine how and to what extent the world's landscape reflects and helps to (re)produce U.S. imperial power. The program will aim to interconnect global and local scales, "foreign" and "domestic" policies, and past histories and present-day legacies. It will examine the lasting effects of imperialism on real local places, in particular the expanding network of U.S. military bases around the world. Fort Lewis and other Northwest military installations will be examined as local case studies of military land acquisition and place-making.
The program will identify the disproportionate role of small places such as Wounded Knee (Lakota Nation), Subic Bay (Philippines), Vieques, (Puerto Rico), Okinawa (Japan), Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean), Guantánamo Bay (Cuba), Chalatenango (El Salvador), Fallujah (Iraq) and Bahrain (Persian Gulf), and locate them within a typology of imperial places. Such a typology could include internal colonies, emptied places, erased places, places of proxy terror, ground zeros, poisoned places, places of resistance, and places of imperial restitution or justice.
As their class project, students will focus on a single local-scale case study, writing separate papers on its past history, present-day landscape, and a resident interview. Students will be part of a world regional group in their seminars, and present their case studies as a group to the class at the end of the quarter. Students will also turn in a discussion page on the readings (with specific questions or comments) in each seminar.
The program will make a geographical contribution to the study of American Empire, by examining the making and remaking of "imperial places," and using place-based approaches to learning about imperialism. Possible article and book authors include Patricia Limerick, Donald Fixico, Chalmers Johnson, Cynthia Enloe, Michael Klare, Arundhati Roy, Howard Zinn, Richard Drinnon, Woody Kipp, Robert Jensen, Michael Ignatieff, and George W. Bush.
Credits: 16
Enrollment: 50 (sophomore and above)
Schedule: Tuesday (lecture 10 am-1 pm; seminar 2-4 pm), Wednesday (workshop/film/guest 10 am-1 pm), Thursday (lecture 10 am-1 pm; seminar 2-4 pm)
Credit awarded in: Geography, International relations, Community history
| 1. Introduction/Geography | 6. Military bases |
| 2. Native America/Manifest Destiny | 7. Middle East |
| 3. Imperialism/Latin America | 8. Resistance |
| 4. Asia/Pacific | 9. Group presentations |
| 5. Resource Wars | 10. Group presentations |
REQUIRED BOOKS
Books are listed in order of first use in the program. For some books, we will only read specific chapters, or read the book over more than one week.
Other articles and chapters will be handed out, put on line, and/or put on reserve in the library.
Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 1988. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, (W.W. Norton and Co., New York) ISBN 0-393-30497-3
Fixico, Donald L. 1998. The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth Century: American Capitalism and Tribal Natural Resources (University of Colorado Press, Boulder). ISBN 0-87081-517-2
Foster, John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, eds. 2004. Pox Americana: Exposing the American Empire (Monthly Review Press, New York). ISBN 1-58376-111-0
Drinnon, Richard. 1990. Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building (Schocken Books, New York). ISBN 0-8052-0978-6
Kipp, Woody. 2004. Viet Cong at Wounded Knee: The Trail of a Blackfeet Activist (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln). ISBN 0-8032-2760-4
Enloe, Cynthia. 2001. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives ISBN-13: 978-0520220713
Klare, Michael T. 2002. Resource Wars (Henry Holt and Co., New York). ISBN 0-8050-5576-2
Loveman, Brian. 2004. Strategy for Empire (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD). ISBN 0-8420-5177-5
Johnson, Chalmers. 2005. The Sorrows of Empire (Henry Holt and Co., New York). ISBN 10-: 0-8050-7797-9 (pbk).
Jensen, Robert. 2004. Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity. (City Lights Publishers, San Francisco). ISBN 0872864324
FIRST WEEK
The first class is on Tuesday, April 3, 10:00 am, in Sem II E1105.
The first week's seminar reading will be Limerick , Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10
It is strongly advised to complete this reading during Spring Break,
so you are ready for the first Tuesday seminar , and you can stay ahead of the readings for the rest of the quarter.
LINKS
Program description: http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/empire.html
Syllabus (on first day): http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/empire
What is Geography? by Charles F. Gritzner
A People's Geography of American Empire (powerpoint & script), by Zoltán Grossman and Joseph Nevins
A History of U.S. Military Interventions by Zoltán Grossman
QUESTIONS?
Dr. Zoltan Grossman (Geography and Native American Studies)
Office: Lab 1, Room 3012, TESC, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy. NW, Olympia WA 98505
Tel. (360) 867-6153
E-mail: grossmaz@evergreen.edu
Web: http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz
Dr. Larry Mosqueda (Political Economy)
Office: Sem II E3104, TESC, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy. NW, Olympia WA 98505
Tel. (360) 867-6513
E-mail: mosqueda@evergreen.edu
Web: http://academic.evergreen.edu/m/mosqueda