The Geography of the Beatles: Approaching Concepts of Human Geography

Abstract

Human geography can be taught by focusing on popular culture contexts with which undergraduate students may already be familiar such as rock music. The Geography of the Beatles introduced undergraduate students to concepts of “new” cultural geography such as space, place, representation, geopolitics, social space and tourism-pilgrimage as well as to more traditional concepts such as diffusion. A wide range of geographical issues were illustrated by a broad-based spatial examination of the music and lives of the Beatles. Activities included a geographical history of the Beatles, reading street maps of the Beatles' hometown of Liverpool, England, song and film analysis, and a song-writing exercise.

Key Words:

• Beatles
• popular music
• popular culture