Power, Place, Identity
Advanced political geography course exploring reconceptualizations of power, place, and identity, and the forces reshaping place-making and identification.
Summary
Past student reviews · Robert Kaiser
Weekly readings included theoretical material that required high-level thinking and discussion, contributing to a challenging academic experience.
What you’ll be able to do
Analyze current conceptualizations of power, place, identity, and difference, particularly those from geographers.
Evaluate major trends, themes, and approaches that have emerged in the field of political geography, especially as they are related to geographies of identification and differentiation.
Employ a performative approach in understanding processes of place-making, bordering, and identification/differentiation.
Identify theoretical debates in the political geography literature.
Discuss major themes and approaches related to questions of power, place, identity, difference, and nationalism.
Identify research questions related to course themes in ways that are responsive to major debates in the literature.
Source: UW Guide
Grade history
↗All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapJunior standing
- Junior standing
This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.
Prerequisite text tree
- Junior standing
Professors
Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
ROBERT KAISER is recorded teaching in Spring 2014, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2019, Fall 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Calendar & sections
Spring 2027Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
|---|
Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.
Meeting source records
No records available.
Student experience
the class
Past student reviews · Robert Kaiser
Students described discussion-based lectures focused on high-level thinking and theoretical readings, which opened their eyes to the subject matter.
Recent recorded grades — Fall 2019: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=17 letter grades); Fall 2020: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=11 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.50 GPA, 71.4% A/AB (n=7 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
Past student reviews · Robert Kaiser
Weekly readings included theoretical material that required high-level thinking and discussion, contributing to a challenging academic experience.
Past student reviews · Robert Kaiser
One student recommended taking the class later in their college career, noting that the content was worth considering despite the difficulty.
Topics
- Power, place, and identity
- Place-making, identification, and differentiation
- Nationalism and difference
- Performative approaches and bordering
Skills
- Analyze conceptualizations of power, place, identity, and difference
- Employ a performative approach to understand place-making and bordering
- Identify theoretical debates in political geography literature
- Identify research questions responsive to major debates
Grades
Latest available · Spring 2024— not enough history to project Spring 2027.
Grade distribution · % of letter grades
Grades over time
Through Spring 2024
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.
Sources & history
Catalog & offerings
Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.
Catalog observation history
Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.
Selected offering source records
No offering records for the selected term.
Raw records
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Student reviews
Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.
Read original reviews
Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
Model outputs & technical records
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
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