About the Department
Chair’s Statement
From Profesor Carolyn
Cartier, Acting Chair
Geography
If you’re reading this
page, welcome to Geography at USC. For many of us, the discipline of Geography
is the most interesting of intellectual pursuits. At its core, Geography is
concerned with human transformation of places and environments and examining
social, economic and cultural life in spatial contexts and at all scales, from
the daily life of individuals, to urban transformations and regional economies,
their interrelations with national issues (or not), and how these intersect
with distant sites and in the context of the global economy. Geography has also
experienced a remarkable theoretical invigoration over the last twenty years;
and with that, place and space—two of geography’s central concepts—have become
important topics across the academy—while geography continues to lead the
‘spatial turn’. Geography’s central focus on human-environment relations also
makes the discipline one of the most important for researching big picture
perspectives on environmental issues, including the new urban environmentalism.
Geographers are also some of the best field researchers around, but whether
local or global, we never ask ‘where it’s at’ but work to understand why places
and regions are characterized by particular conditions, how those conditions
have formed, and how they might be better transformed.
Geography at USC
We’re a distinctive
department of accomplished faculty and incredible students, working on diverse
issues in human and environmental geography and GIS. The department is
undergoing a year of transformation and growth with two new faculty joining us
in fall 2007. Manuel Pastor, will be leaving the
In Geography at USC,
most faculty research focuses on some combination of six specializations:
- Cities
and city planning, with
emphasis on
- Urban
and global studies, with
interdisciplinary emphasis on East and Southeast Asia, especially
- Environment, particularly questions of sustainability
and environmental health
- Regional
economy, especially
regional formation and uneven development in the context of the world
economy
- Social
justice, especially the
implications of class, gender, race and ethnicity
- Geographical
Information Systems,
understood through basic science and in applications to social problems
USC Geography is distinctive
because:
- We are a small department that facilitates
close working relationships between students and faculty.
- We aim for diversity in intellectual
interests and methodologies, and
departmental demographics and commitments.
- USC faculty are pursuing cutting-edge work
in critical geography, and are leaders in their respective fields.
- We are dedicated to research that matters,
with a focus on social justice in race, environment, and health issues.
- We live in one of the most dynamic world
cities, and our research on it has given rise to an ‘LA School’ of urban
studies.
Our students graduate
from USC with critical thinking and practical skills that serve them well in
professional careers. Indeed in a recent survey of government employers in
The University of Southern California
USC was first
established in 1880 as a regional university focused on the professions. Now
the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences is at its core, which is Geography’s
home base; while the professional schools, including Cinema, Law, Business and
Planning contribute to making the campus a lively setting with diverse ‘real
world’ connections. USC is the largest private research university on the
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is one of
the largest, most interesting and complex cities in the world. While its
landscape is known for long boulevards, freeways and sprawling suburbs, it is
actually better understood as a mosaic of districts and neighborhoods with
their own interesting features and personalities. LA is not easy to see, but it is incredible and ultimately
rewarding to get to know (trust me, I’m from