Courses

British cities have served as a seedbed of the modern social science disciplines, from public health to urban sociology—in fact, the term “gentrification” emerged out of the nexus of race and class in postwar London. This undergraduate seminar introduces students to methods of urban inquiry by focusing on the ways in which social scientists—urban planners, sociologists, ethnographers, cultural theorists—have sought to make the city legible, from the late nineteenth century to the present. How has urban development intersected with modes of knowledge production? In what ways has urban space fostered new identities and practices spanning race, class, and gender? And how does the view from Britain reorient our perspective on the processes of growth and stratification that have shaped the contemporary city? Secondary readings will be supplemented by primary sources by figures including Ebenezer Howard, Jane Jacobs, and Stuart Hall.