Geography and Spanish & Latin American Studies (5 years), _MA

15 Credit Points

GG2014 examines political, economic, social and cultural change from a geographical perspective. The course consists of five distinct blocks, each of which introduces a specific sub-field of human geography – economic, urban, tourism, cultural and social geography. As a team-taught course, it makes use of a range of concepts and uses case studies drawn from the staff’s own fields of research. As well as geography, the course is designed to be accessible and relevant to students from other arts and social science disciplines such as anthropology, business, economics, history, international relations and sociology.

15 Credit Points

This course introduces students to a range of scientific and social scientific skills and techniques used in Geography. The course content builds towards a residential field trip that takes place in the Easter vacation. Past venues have included the Isles of Skye and Arran, the cities of Inverness and Stirling, and Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park. The trips enable students to put into practice the skills and techniques they have been taught through lectures and in workgroup sessions, and to conduct original research into geographical issues covered elsewhere on the programme.

Only available to students registered for programme year 2 of a Geography study aim or to students also taking at least 3 of GG2013, GG2014, GG2509 & GG2510

15 Credit Points

In a digital era of GPS navigators and many online map tools (e.g. Google Maps), there is an increase demand for professionals able to understand and manipulate geographical data and use these to monitor processes at various scales. The course provides a solid background in the acquisition of geographical data, both onshore and offshore with classic field-based and remote sensing techniques. It covers the creation and interpretation of maps and looks at the history of remote sensing and its science as well as providing the essential basis to understanding what a Geographical Information System is.

15 Credit Points

This course explores the complex and dynamic relationship between the environment and human societies. It examines how social, economic, and political factors influence environmental policies and practices, and how environmental changes, in turn, affect human societies. Through case studies such as using environmental ethics to think about tuna fishing and whale conservation, or engaging with the idea of putting a price on nature through natural capital approaches, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of key concepts, theories, and case studies on socio-environmental issues.

15 Credit Points

This course provides an understanding of environmental processes and landscape change through time and space. The course places Physical Geography as an integral component of Earth System Science. The first half of the course explores physical environmental processes, whilst the second focuses on evidence of environmental change across a range of temporal and spatial scales. Three themes of glaciology, hydrology and palaeoecology will be explored to illustrate the linkages and interactions between process and form over a range of temporal and spatial scales. The course is team-taught by staff with an emphasis on using examples from recent research projects.

15 Credit Points

This course follows Spanish Language 2 or can be taken by students who have the required level of Spanish.

15 Credit Points

This course aims to prepare intending Honours students of Spanish and Latin American Studies for their compulsory period abroad in a Spanish-speaking country.

The course will develop further Spanish language skills, both receptive and productive. Classes on grammatical and linguistic analysis will contribute to the development of both sets of skills. In addition students will complete a structured self learning programme of audio-visual study and grammatical reinforcement study.

15 Credit Points

This course aims to prepare intending Honours students of Spanish and Latin American Studies for their compulsory period abroad in a Spanish-speaking country.

The course will develop further Spanish language skills, both receptive and productive. Classes on grammatical and linguistic analysis will contribute to the development of both sets of skills. In addition students will complete a structured self learning programme of audio-visual study and grammatical reinforcement study.

15 Credit Points

This course follows Spanish Language 4 and aims to prepare non beginners intending Honours students of Spanish and Latin American Studies for their compulsory period abroad in a Spanish-speaking country.

The course will develop further Spanish language skills, expanding on the vocabulary and introducing formal documents and letters. Classes on grammatical and linguistic analysis will contribute to the development of both sets of skills. In addition students will complete a structured self learning programme of vocabulary and grammatical reinforcement study.

15 Credit Points

This course uses texts, which can include plays, films, novels, music, letters and an etiquette guide, to understand issues, concerns and themes in Latin American history. The course is organised chronologically and each week classes focus on texts from a particular country as a means to discuss bigger questions, such as how to make a new nation after three hundred years of colonial rule and a decade of warfare, how to demonstrate your honourability in an anonymous city and what cultural models are the best source of inspiration. The course also focuses on 'context' shared throughout Latin America.

15 Credit Points

Focusing on major cities in Europe and the Americas, this course unit uses a range of texts, including films, poetry and fiction, to investigate urban spaces as sites of promise, power and loss. Representations of global cities, and experiences of urban dwellers, highlight themes such as empire, identity, leisure, labour and love. Set amid glittering facades and gritty back streets, the texts studied in this course explore the many meanings of the urban experience across place and time. These urban encounters also provide a way of understanding key social, political and cultural moments in the past and present.

15 Credit Points

The aim of the Residence Abroad Project is to develop an in-depth understanding of a specific aspect (anthropological, political or cultural) connected with one of the Spanish and Latin American countries in which students are staying. Students are expected to study a topic in its socio-and to complete a report in Spanish of c. 2000-2500 words.

15 Credit Points

This core course is designed to introduce Honours students to key debates on the nature and scope of academic geography. Geographers past and present have studied a huge variety of phenomena using a variety of tools to investigate their subject. This course will help you understand this diversity. Topics include: the changing meaning of the 'environment'; the use and abuse of statistical analysis; the influence of left-wing and post-modern perspectives, and the role of technology. Students may specialise in particular aspects, or mix-and-match across the breadth of the discipline, as you wish.

15 Credit Points

This core course builds on GG2508 to provide an introduction to the conduct of research in the Geosciences at an advanced level. It is intended to familiarise students with the skills necessary to design, implement and write up effective research. These skills will support work on undergraduate dissertations and other project work. The course also introduces careers research skills, and explores how you can best make use of your degree in the 'real world' after graduation: workshops run in partnership with the University's Career Service provide practical advice and training on how best to develop your career.

15 Credit Points

This is a core prescribed course open only to Junior Honours Spanish and Latin American Studies students and a selected range of other programmes at the appropriate level. This course aims to enable you to identify and use, accurately, fluently, and with an appropriate level of sophistication, a range of vocabulary and linguistic registers at advanced level.

30 Credit Points

This is the final Spanish language course within the degree that will provide students with advanced comprehension and writing skills in general and specialised registers.

30 Credit Points

The Honours dissertation provides students with the opportunity to produce a piece of independent and original research on an approved topic. Advanced level knowledge of a sub-area of the discipline is developed through independent study supervised by a member of academic staff. This course is compulsory for any students completing a single Honours degree in Geography and for any joint Honours student who has not registered to complete a dissertation in their other Honours subject.

30 Credit Points

This core, 'capstone' course is designed to develop further students' critical understanding of the contemporary intellectual and real-world contexts in which the academic discipline of geography - and its graduates! - operates. The course involves the preparation of seminar presentations and short papers on a series of issues pertinent to contemporary geography. This work should showcase new philosophies and methodologies; and/or the relationships between geography and other academic disciplines; and/or applications of academic geography to real-world problems. Students also consider how they can best make use of their degree after graduation, with preparation of a reflective, career-planning report.

30 Credit Points

This year-long course unit combines dissertation research with research methods training. The dissertation is a piece of extended independent research (8,000-10,000 words long), structured as a critical evaluation, analysis or argument, about a topic germane to Spanish and Latin American Studies. The topic is chosen by the student, in conjunction with the dissertation coordinator and an individual Departmental supervisor, both of whom approve the topic. Students are encouraged to design their topic building on their previous studies, especially honours courses. The dissertation offers a chance for students to carry out in-depth independent study in Spanish and Latin American Studies, and to acquire and develop valuable research skills. The course begins, in the first half session, with workshops on diverse research methods and the creation of peer support groups. The second half session includes structured meetings with the dissertation supervisor and meetings with the peer support group, as well as independent research and writing.