PhD in Geography - Culture, Place, and Flows in Minneapolis United States | University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Recently, the geographical conception of place has become more sophisticated, with the realization that all places are connected to other places and traversed by all sorts of flows, like migrants, money, goods, germs, satellite images, and digital data. This cluster focuses on what are traditionally considered the flows of culture, i.e., beliefs, representations, media, art and rituals, from one place to another. The direction and intensity of these flows follow uneven relations of power, such as those connecting the US and the rest of the world. Crucial questions for the 21st century, which are being asked with increasing urgency around us, include: Are we losing the world's cultural diversity How are traditions remembered How do we conceive of far-away places, our own place How does belonging to a place work How are nations and minorities made How can groups have opposing ideas about the same place How do we get to know places through film, literature, music, or painting These questions are asked in other thematic clusters as well, but Culture, Place, and Flows is distinguished by a generally closer connection to the methods and concepts of the humanitieshistory and art history, theater studies, comparative literature, philosophy, and anthropology.