| Unit name | Big City Lights: Comparative Urban History |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HISTM0069 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Hanna |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit examines the emergence of the modern city from a historical perspective, with a focus on three very different places: London, New York and Tokyo. We will begin by considering the foundation and development of these cities during the early modern period. We will examine their enormous growth during the nineteenth century and the development of new and surprising urban landscapes which transformed the experience of inhabiting a city: skyscrapers, apartment blocks, railway stations, subways, and department stores. We will also examine how cities sought to deal with the problems relating to population growth and wealth: dealing with the enormous amount of sewage, pollution, and waste these cities produced. We then go on to examine these cities during the twentieth century, their transformation in the years after World War II and again since the 1980s, and the changes which heritage, gentrification and deindustrialization have produced.
The unit will include thematic mini-lectures and student-led presentations exploring case studies. The unit introduces students to themes in global, urban, and social history, while allowing students to specialise in the histories of particular cities.
1) To give students a broad knowledge and understanding of the history of modern cities since the eighteenth century
2) To improve students’ ability to argue effectively and at length (including an ability to cope with complexities and to describe and deploy these effectively).
3) To be able to display high level skills in selecting, applying, interpreting and organising information, including evidence of a high level of bibliographical control.
4) To develop the ability of students to evaluate and/or challenge current scholarly thinking.
5) To foster student’s capacity to take a critical stance towards scholarly processes involved in arriving at historical knowledge and/or relevant secondary literature.
6) To be able to demonstrate an understanding of concepts and an ability to conceptualise.
7) To develop students’ capacity for independent research.
1 x 2 hour interactive lecture per week
One 5000 word essay (100%) - ILO's 1-7
Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (1998)
Doreen Massey, World City (2007)
Saskia Sassen, Global City (1992)
James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Various Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998)
Sophie Watson and Gary Bridge (ed.) The New Blackwell Companion to the City (2011)
Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (2007)
