S26-07 Geopolitics, with an emphasis on the ‘Geo’
Class | Available (Membership Required)
Geopolitics examines how physical geography (i.e. natural resources, climate, hydrology, etc.) influences political and international relations. It is an area of political science that was formalized a century ago as scholars began to scrutinize empire-building throughout human history. This course will focus on natural resources for energy production and manufacturing that are unevenly distributed around the world due to their geological origins. The sessions also will address how geological discoveries and exploration in the last two hundred years fostered the industrial revolution, international trade and globalization, and ongoing struggles for control of or access to economically critical resources. Examples of modern-day ‘resource imperialism’ (e.g. Ukraine, Greenland, Venezuela, the middle East and North Africa, South China Sea …) will be evaluated from a geological perspective.
Daniel May
Dan May is an emeritus professor of geology at the University of New Haven. He is an alum of Stanford and UC Santa Barbara; served on the faculty at Victoria University in New Zealand; in Ohio at Bowling Green State University and the University of Findlay; and since 2013 at New Haven. His geological roles focused on regional mapping, mineral resource exploration, natural hazard assessments, and ultimately environmental remediation and risk management. He enjoyed conducting or directing field projects in more than a dozen states as well as New Zealand and other South Pacific islands. Dan was a senior university administrator in the latter half of his career and served as the chief academic officer for both Findlay and New Haven.