BLACK GEOGRAPHIES: A PLACE FOR BLACK STU

This Ph.D. seminar explores the inextricable connection between blackness and geographic inquiry by exploring the intersections of Black Studies and Geography. Considering Katherine McKittrick’s claim that Black geographies are ‘the terrain of political struggle itself’ or where the imperative of a perspective of struggle takes place,” we will situate the spatial relations of blackness by placing Black people at the core of spatial production and examine the mechanisms by which this takes place. In this course we ask: what are the limitations and possibilities of traditional geographies and how does Black study attend to these boundaries? How does Black geographic thought produce wider material and conceptual space for geographic knowledge? How does Black Studies account for and understand Black spatial condition, experience, and imaginaries?