World Cultural Regions

The course is conceived as an introduction to world cultural diversity, conducted through the analysis of major world regions. Contents are organized around two main axes: the first part introduces and reflects on the concept of 'cultural region', its typology and its defining features, tackling debates around different systems and proposals of world cultural regionalization. In order to do that, cultural regions are assumed to be realms with a population sharing similar cultural features and traits, including elements such as history, landscape (understood as the cultural outcome of relations between societies and their surrounding physical environments), language, religion, food systems, political systems and traditions, etc. The second part introduces major features of some selected world cultural regions according to Geography academic classifications and criteria: Europe and North America, Latin America, Arab world, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Monsoon Asia.