Course Catalogue

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The course addresses how our mental lives and our emotions are fundamental to how space and place are produced and re-made. Students consider a variety of theories and approaches to minds, emotions and mental life from geography and related fields (including health geography; geographies of the emotions and of memory; psychosocial studies; science and technology studies). The course will address a variety of topics and phenomena including: the emotional, imaginary and symbolic processes and formations that structure how we live together; 'extreme' and 'intense' modes of emotional and psychic life (e.g. trauma, hate, violence, love) and the geographies they unfold; geographies of mental health and 'madness'; and the rise of neuroscientific ('brain-based') accounts of human life/ The course uses a wide variety of conceptual and empirical literatures that attempt to do justice to the geographically, historically and culturally variable ways in which mental life has been understood and investigated. Who has authority to investigate and analyse geographies of mental life has a long and controversial history, and so the course includes a wide range of source material so as to allow students to explore the political ramifications of attempting to map internal worlds and ephemeral processes.

2 hours of lecture per week; 1 hour seminar per fortnight

Normally, fulfilment of entry requirements to Level 3 Geography

End of semester exam - 40%

Essay - 60%

■ To understand and evaluate how minds and mental life are fundamental in creating social and cultural geographies

■ To explore debates and controversies over what mental life is, how it should be studied, and how it affects the production of space and of communities

■ To foster critical awareness of the many consequences of modelling and mapping individuals' and communities' mental lives and internal worlds

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Explain and discuss geographical debates concerning mental life and the emotions

■ Critically evaluate contrasting theories and methods that explicate how mental and emotional life shapes how spaces are made and re-/un-made

■ Articulate how interconnected psychic and social forces produce us as people and as communities

■ Demonstrate how mental life and the emotions operate at different geographical scales - from the intimate to the global

■ Evaluate how mapping individuals' and communities' mental lives and internal worlds carry political and other consequences 

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.