Graduate Program in Geography
More information
Website:
www.puc-rio.br/geografia
Contact:
posgeo@puc-rio.br
+55 21 3527-1667
Address:
Departamento de Geografia e Meio Ambiente
Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225
Ala Frings, Sala 411F
Gávea, Rio de Janeiro - RJ
Office hours:
08:30am to 12:00pm and
1:30pm to 5:00pm
General Information
Program Overview and History
Since its creation in 1941, the undergraduate Geography course of the Geography and Environment Department at PUC-Rio has always had the objective of training professionals capable of facing society’s challenges. Currently, the course’s main concern is the understanding of different forms of space organization, emphasizing the analysis of environmental problems from a plural and interdisciplinary perspective. In this sense, it has received recognition and it has a huge potential to the contribution of the preparation of professionals of Geography and of various sciences, that together participate in the search for more democratic use of territory by men and women, companies and institutions. The emphasis must remain on environmental issues in its broader sense (including natural and social) as it has long been prioritized in our Department.
The Geography Graduate Program (PGE) at PUC-Rio, established in the second semester of 2007, has been revealing its potential of articulating segments of teaching and research (at undergraduate and graduate levels), institutions (national and international) and teaching activities, research and extension, which shows its importance within the context of training professionals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and other countries.
The course's proposal resides in the quest for concrete forms of interdisciplinary exercise in social, cultural end ecological processes occurring in the space. Therefore, the program admits applicants with undergraduate degrees in human, social and biological sciences.
The Graduate Program in Geography at PUC-Rio, recommended by CAPES since November 2006, is composed by a Doctoral course and a Master’s course in Geography.
Master
Presentation
The PUC-Rio Master’s Program in Geography, recommended by CAPES in November 2006, has Geography and Environment as its concentration area, which is structured in two lines of research: Landscape Transformation and Space and Sustainabilities.
The course's proposal is the quest of concrete forms of interdisciplinary exercise in the treatment of ecological, social and cultural processes that occur in space. Therefore, the Program admits applicants with an undergraduate degree in human, social and biological sciences. The convergence of the focuses of its two lines of research is given by the appreciation of the cultural and social dimension of the ecological processes in the “Landscape Transformation” line and the search for the natural environment dimension in social relations linked to sustainability issues in the “Space and Sustainabilities” line.
Objectives
- Generate new knowledge and form human resources focused on environment research, through the bias of Geography;
- Promote a more integrated and complex vision of society-nature relationships;
- Encourage cooperation among researchers (professors and students) of the lines of research, in an interdisciplinary integration (not restricted to each line), which provides the student with a more comprehensive view of environmental problems.
Concentration areas and lines of research
Concentration area: Geography and Environment
Line of Research: Landscape Transformation
In environmental issues in their stricter sense, an ample field proper to Geography is the landscape transformation process caused by human action. This line seeks to interpret the environment by searching for relationships between nature, culture and society. Through the approaches and methodology of Environmental and Ecology History, this line works with the ecological result of human transformation of the ecosystems through the times. Another dimension also developed in this line is the Environmental Ethics.
Line of Research: Space and Sustainabilities
Socio-space transformations and its corresponding processes, in many different scales, are the central focus of this line of research. The articulation between changes in social, political, technological and environmental structures complexify the geographical space, rendering it into an arena of theoretical-methodological and conceptual discussions that boost the rethinking of Geography about reality and the different strategies for its sustainability.
Line of Research: Geographic Education and Citizenship
The connection between geographic science and society in general, since the 19th century, has primordially been through teaching in public, private, alternative education networks…, and the school, as an institution of Modernity, that defines everyday life in various social nucleus, seeks to articulate, didactically, science produced in Academia with the social environment lived in its various times, and from the most diverse ideological and functional perspectives.
Recognition of the Course
Master
Recognition:
CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Eduction Personnel; from Brazilian Ministry of Education) evaluation: grade 4 for the 2010-2012 period.
Approved by the CNE/CES MEC n.288/2015 of July 08, 2015.
Granted degree: Master in Geography
Requirements for obtaining the Master’s degree
- Complete 28 credits, distributed as follows:
- 8 credits in disciplines of the common trunk
- 8 credits dissertation activities (four in Directed Study in the line of research and four in Dissertation Seminar);
- 12 credits in Elective disciplines (4 in Landscapes Transformation line, 4 in Space and Sustainabilities line, and 4 that can be obtained in the other elective disciplines of the Geography Department of another Department, either at PUC-Rio or in other graduate programs),
- Approval in the presentation and defense of the Master’s dissertation, within the deadlines determined by the Graduate Programs Regulation at PUC-Rio
Admission and Enrollment
Master
The registration and applicant selection obeys the calendar fixed by PUC-Rio. Besides the general regulatory requirements, the Department of Geography and Environment requires the following:
- Lattes Curriculum (documented)
- Two (02) Reference letters
- Undergraduate Diploma
- Undergraduate academic transcripts
- Identification documents
- 01 (one) photo 3x4
- Specific knowledge exam
- Proficiency in a foreign language exam
- Preliminary Project of Research
- Interview with the jury
- Availability for dedication to the course
Written exam and work proposal — according to the Notice.