13171c

WiSe 14/15: A Modern History of the City: Global Perspectives

Reza Masoudi Nejad

Comments

‘A Modern History of the City’ looks at the global landscape of urbanisation over the last two centuries. It explores how the modern city has been shaped and in what ways the dynamics of urbanisation have transformed human society. Echoing Eric Lampard’s voice, the ‘city’ is not just the subject of this course; the ‘city’ provides a conceptual framework to explain a historical phenomenon that is otherwise difficult to understand. In this course, the city is taken as an active part of the historical process, and not just a passive backdrop.
The course begins with a short introduction to the general history of cities before focusing on the history of cities since 1800. The early 19th century marks the emergence of modern mega cities: London reached a population of one million people in 1801 and eventually matched the ancient mega-cities of Rome and Bagdad. The idea of this course is to provide a platform to understand the history of cities by using different sets of conceptual frameworks. It is aimed at articulating not just how the city has changed over time, but how perceptions, conceptions, and representations of the city have also changed in modern history. Therefore it is about exploring the actual dynamics of the city, the ways that a city is developed and designed, as well as represented and idealised. This story is about urbanisation in modern history and its social and intellectual consequences.
The course explores diverse modes of urbanisations in different parts of the world, while acknowledging that they are part of interconnected global structures. The idea is to understand the entanglements between local, regional, and global forces that have continuously shaped our cities. Although the course is not about a specific region, depending on student interest there will be more attention given to certain parts of the world. Each student will choose a city to write about.
Sources: Hall, Peter, 1998, Cities in Civilization, New York: Pantheon Books. Bridge, Gary, and Watson, Sophie, 2010, The Blackwell City Reader, Chichester, West Sussex, U.K; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Prakash, Gyan, and Kruse, Kevin Michael (eds.), The Spaces of the Modern City: Imaginaries, Politics, and Everyday Life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Urban History (Cambridge Journals online) . close