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FRAMEWORKS FOR THINKING ABOUT THE URBAN: A FIRST PASS
Wednesday, September 3
Cities today.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How does a city differ from a metropolis and an urban area?
2. How is urbanization different than urbanism?
Monday, September 8
The urban crisis.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How has the historical context in which urban studies emerged shaped its agenda?
2. How do 'problems in the city' differ from 'problems of the city'?
Assigned readings:
Beauregard, Robert. 2010. "Urban Studies." Pp. 931-6 in Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by R. Hutchison. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fishman, Robert. 2000. "The American Metropolis at Century's End: Past and Future Influences." Housing Policy Debate 11(1): 199-213.
Brenner, Neil. 2013. "Theses on Urbanization." Public Culture 25(1): 85-114.
Wednesday, September 10
The right to the city.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Question for today:
1. What basic needs in the lives of individuals and households do cities provide?
2. How does 'the right to the city' provide a framework for evaluating and intervening in urban life and urban structure?
Assigned readings:
Boo, Katherine. 2012. "Annawadi." Pp. 3-16 in Behind the Beautiful Forevers. New York: Random House.
Harvey, David. 2008. "The Right to the City."New Left Review 53(Sep-Oct): 23-40.
CULTURAL HISTORY AND THE EARLY INDUSTRIAL CITY
Monday, September 15
The growth of the industrial city.
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Questions for today:
1. What major demographic, social, and environmental changes marked the rise of modern industrial cities in the early nineteenth century?
2. How, according to Engels, did urbanization contribute to the rise of distinct class identities?
Assigned reading:
Engels, Friedrich. 1987 [1845]. "The Great Towns." Pp. 68-110 in The Condition of the Working Class in England. New York: Penguin Books.
Wednesday, September 17
State power and 19th-century urban reform movements.
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Questions for today:
1. How did the nineteenth-century growth of state-directed urban reform movements influence the formation of social classes and class conflict?
2. How did urban reform movements contribute to power relations in the imperial context?
Assigned readings:
Wohl, Anthony S. 1983. "Fever! Fever!" Pp. 117-141, 372-377 in Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kidambi, Prashant. 2007. "'A Disease of Locality': Plague and the Crisis of 'Sanitary Order.'" Pp. 49-70 in The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890-1920. London: Ashgate.
Monday, September 22
Gender and the Late-Victorian City.
Lecturer: Lydia Murdoch.
Questions for today:
1. What gender expectations did Victorians associate with specific urban spaces, and how did accounts written by female "slummers" both reinforce and challenge these expectations?
2. Pick a favorite example to discuss from Slum Travelers. Based on your example, do you agree with Ross that these women writers had a "different place" [from men] in writing the city" (13)?
Assigned readings:
Murdoch, Lydia. 2014. "Urban Life." Pp. 205-29 in Daily Life of Victorian Women. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
And... choose one of the following: "A Lady Resident (1889)," "Annie Besant, 'White Slavery in London' (1888)," "Margaret Harkness, 'Barmaids' (1889)," and "Olive Christian Malvery, 'Gilding the Gutter' (1905)."
In Ross, Ellen (ed.). 2007. Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920, edited by E. Ross. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Recommended: Ross, Ellen. 2007. "Introduction: Adventures Among the Poor." Front map and pp. 1-39 in Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920, edited by E. Ross. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Wednesday, September 24
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
LITERATURE AND THE URBAN EXPERIENCE
Monday, September 29
Georg Simmel and the production of an urban subject.
First short paper due.
Lecturer: Tyrone Simpson.
Questions for today:
1. What are the psychic characteristics of the modern urban subject?
2. How does the study of literature contribute to urban studies?
Assigned readings:
Simmel, Georg. 2003 [1903]. "The Metropolis and Mental Life." Pp. 12-19 in The City Cultures Reader, 2d ed., edited by M. Miles, T. Hall and I. Borden. New York: Routledge.
Poe, Edgar Allan. 1840. "The Man of the Crowd."
Wednesday, October 1
Wanderers and crowds.
Lecturer: Tyrone Simpson.
Questions for today:
1. What factors of the Black experience in Washington, D.C. shape the fiction of Edward Jones?
2. What are the psychic characteristics of the postmodern urban subject?
Assigned readings:
Highmore, Ben. 2005. "Street Scenes." Pp. 26-44 in Cityscapes: Cultural Readings in the Material and Symbolic City. New York: Palgrave.
Jones, Edward P. 2004. "Lost in the City." Pp. 141-50 in Lost In the City: Stories. New York: Amistad Books.
Jackson, Lawrence P. and Edward P. Jones. 2000. "An Interview with Edward P. Jones." African American Review 34(1): 95-103.
Monday, October 6
Seeing space and seeing race: Anzia Yezierska.
Lecturer: Tyrone Simpson.
Questions for today:
1. What did the Lower East Side of New York City look like at the turn of the 20th century?
2. How does racial identity map the city?
Assigned readings:
Yezierska, Anzia. 2003 [1925]. Bread Givers. New York: Persea. Read from pg. 170 to the end.
Simpson, Tyrone R., II. 2012. "'The Love of Colour in Me': Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers and the Space of White Racial Manufacture." Ghetto Images in Twentieth-Century American Literature: Writing Apartheid. New York: Palgrave. Read pp. 26-41.
Wednesday, October 8
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY: HOUSING AND INEQUALITY
Monday, October 13
Inequality in the U.S.; inequality in U.S. cities.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Questions for today:
1. How is income and wealth inequality linked to other forms of inequality (access to housing, health care, education; political inequality, etc.)?
2. While inequality has been rising in the US since 1980 or so, middle class Americans remain, by global and historical standards, very well off. And further impoverished people in the US have -- by historical and global standards -- a lot of stuff. And further still, while the "1%" have gotten very rich since 1980, the incomes middle class and the poor have fallen relatively little. So... why should inequality in the US concern us? Is this merely about resenting the soaring success of the very rich? Why should inequality concern, esp., urbanists?
3. How does inequality in the US help to explain our "housing crisis"? In particular, how can it help to explain the "foreclosure/subprime crisis" of 2007-??
Assigned readings (and viewing):
"Requiem for Detroit?" (2011, dir. Julien Temple).
Koechlin, Tim. 2014. "Winner Take All: Soaring Inequality in the US and Why It Matters." Huffington Post (blog), January 24.
Koechlin, Tim. 2014. "Urban Inequality, Neoliberalism, and the Case for a Multidisciplinary Economics." Review of Radical Political Economy 46(4): 1-10.
Wilkerson, Richard. 2011. “How Inequality Harms Us All" [TED Talk video].
Leonhardt, David. 2013. "In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters." New York Times, July 22.
Capps, Kriston. 2014. "Mapping the Spread of Housing Inequality Over the Great Recession." Citylab (website), September 17.
Wednesday, October 15
The anti-foreclosure movement and community organizing.
Guest speakers: Jonathan Bix and Margaret Kwateng, Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson.
Questions for today:
1. What is community organizing, and what is its purpose?
2. What caused the recent foreclosure crisis?
3. How is community organizing used to prevent foreclosure and eviction?
Assigned reading:
Schutzman, Nina. 2013. "Wappingers Woman Fights Foreclosure, Aided by Grassroots Organization." Poughkeepsie Journal, May 15.
Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall and Steve Max. 2010. "The Fundamentals of Direct Action Organizing." In Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists. 4th ed. Santa Ana: Forum Press.
City Life/Vida Urbana. 2012. Introduction, chaps. 1-2, 4 in Bank Tenant Association Organizing Manual. Jamaica Plain, MA: City Life/Vida Urbana.
FALL BREAK: OCTOBER 19-25
Monday, October 27
Interdependent inequalities.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today: 1. How have the socioeconomic divides between U.S. central cities and their suburbs evolved since the Urban Crisis? 2. How did the recent recession affect supply and demand for rental housing in the U.S.? 3. Is increasing homeownership an appropriate goal for housing policy?
Assigned readings:
Casey, Colleen, Peter Dreier, Robert Flack and Todd Swanstrom. 2004. "Pulling Apart: Economic Segregation among Suburbs and Central Cities in Major Metropolitan Areas." Brookings Institution, Research Report, October.
Samara, Tony Rashan. 2014. The Rise of the Renter Nation. New York: Right to the City Alliance.
Wednesday, October 29
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
Questions for today:
1. How does economic segregation across and within cities exacerbate economic inequality among households?
2. How does the historic role of policy and other institutional forces in shaping urbanization and urban power challenge the mainstream economic thesis on urban inequality?
Assigned readings:
Nevarez, Leonard. Forthcoming. "Urban Political Economy." In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd ed., edited by G. Ritzer. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dreier, Peter, John Mollenkopf and Todd Swanstrom. 2004. Chap. 1, pp. 103-123 in Place Matters. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
Monday, November 3
The subprime/foreclusure/financial crisis and its aftermath.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Questions for today:
1. How, during the post WWII period, has government policy encouraged suburbanization? (See Place Matters, pp 103-123) What effect did these policies have on US cities?
2. Dreier et al., in Place Matters, argue that the policies that promoted suburbanization were racist -- often quite explicitly so -- and that the consequences of these policies-- sprawl, American style -- have promoted segregation and inequality across space, and economic immobility. Explain.
3. How are the relatively recent spike in foreclosures (2007-), the collapse of the financial sector (2008) and the "great recession" (2008-?) inter-related? How do neo-liberal policies since, say 1979 (tax cuts, privatization, deregulation) help to explain the housing/financial/economic crisis of 2008 and beyond?
Assigned readings and viewing:
"Inside Job" (2010, dir. Charles Ferguson).
Atlas, John. 2007. "The Conservative Origins of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis." American Prospect, December 17.
Petroff, Eric. 2007. "Who is to Blame for the Subprime Crisis?" Investopedia.
Bocian, Debbie Gruenstein, Wei Li and Keith S. Ernst. 2010. "Foreclosures by Race and Ethnicity: The Demographics of a Crisis." Center for Responsible Lending, Research Report, June 18. Just read pp. 2-4 and look at Figure 2 (on pg. 12).
Goldstein, Matthew. 2014. "Another Shadow in Ferguson as Outside Firms Buy and Rent Out Distressed Homes." New York Times, September 3.
Coalition for the Homeless, "Facts about Homelessness."
Recommended: Wright, Kai. 2008. "Mortgage Industry Bankrupts Black America," The Nation, June 26.
CAMPUS LECTURE: Tuesday, November 4, 8:00 pm in Taylor Hall 203
Theresa Williamson, "Community Responses to Eviction, Gentrification, and Police Violence in Pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro."
Wednesday, November 5
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
SPECIAL EVENT: Wednesday, November 5, 3:15-5:00
Walking Tour of Middle Main, Poughkeepsie.
Join Vassar Sustainability and Hudson River Housing for a walking tour of the Middle Main district in Poughkeepsie. Learn about revitalization efforts happening at the Underwear Factory, meet local restaurant owners, discuss what food security means for the city, and discover what Poughkeepsie has to offer beyond Raymond Avenue.
Shuttles will leave from Main Circle at 3:15. RSVP to alihall@vassar.edu.
VISUAL URBANISM: THE OPTICS OF URBAN MODERNITY
Monday, November 10
Second short paper due.
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
In-class film: "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" (1927, dir. Walter Ruttmann).
Wednesday, November 12
Overview: three historical moments, three historical regimes.
1. The emergent metropolis & the industrialization of perception: railroad, urban crowd, movie palace.
Lecturer: Lisa Brawley.
Questions for today's readings:
1. What is the "industrialization of perception"? How were transformations in modes of viewing linked to transformations in the built environment and technologies of urban modernity?
What are the linkages between the emergent metropolis and the emergence of cinema, and why might this be important and interesting to students of urban studies?
3. What kind of evidence is photographic evidence?
Assigned readings & viewings:
Re-read Simmel's "Metropolis and Mental Life."
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. 1986. "Railroad Time & Railroad Space" and "Panoramic Perception." In The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Recommended: Bruno, Giuiliana. 2007."Motion and Emotion: Film and the Urban Fabric." Pp. 14-27 in Cities and Transition: the Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis, edited by A. Webber and E. Wilson. London: Wallflower Press.
View/explore: "Berlin: Symphony of a Great [as in very large] City" (1927, dir. Walter Ruttmann). Note: this is a silent film in "five acts." View the first 8 minutes, the last 8 minutes, and a 5-10 minute segment midway through (starting around 40 minutes in).
Monday, November 17
2. The decentralizing city: the car and airplane as viewing machines.
Lecturer: Lisa Brawley.
Questions for today's readings
1. What kinds of knowledge about the urban are available from aerial photography?
2. What does the sequenced snapshot reveal about the spatial logics of urbanization at midcentury?
3. What is the "perceptual form of the city”? What makes a city "legible” (and to whom)? Why was legibility seen to be important?
4. How might different scopic regimes empower particular urban actors and urban actions?
Assigned readings:
DeCerteau, Michel. 1984. "Walking in the City." Pp. 91-110 in The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stierli, Martino. 2009. "In Sequence: Cinematic Perception in Learning from Las Vegas." Hunch 12: 76-85.
Recommended: Appleyard, Donald, Kevin Lynch and John Meyer. 1964. Excerpt from The View from the Road. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wednesday, November 19
3. Information space: the urban in an age of ubiquitous computing.
Lecturer: Lisa Brawley.
Questions for today's readings:
1. How does the "mixed reality city” differ from the city we've come to know through cinema, video, and sequenced snapshot?
2. How are "smart” media -- ubiquitous computing, intelligent maps, satellite imagery, the internet of things -- transforming our knowledge of and experience in the metropolis?
3. What forms of representation does "extended urbanization” enable or require?
Assigned readings:
Shepard, Mark. 2011. "Toward the Sentient City." Pp. 16-37 in Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Diller, Elizabeth and Ricardo Scofidio. 2005. "Architecture as Habitable Medium." Pp. 184-95 in Disappearing Architecture: From Real to Virtual to Quantum, edited by G. Flachbart and P. Weibel. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Re-read Brenner's "Theses on Urbanization."
Recommended: Kurgan, Laura. 2013. Excerpt from Close Up at a Distance: Mapping, Technology, and Politics. New York: Zone.
Monday, November 24
Lecturer: Leonard Nevarez.
URBAN EDUCATION
Wednesday, November 26
The achievement gap.
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. What issues do scholars who orient their work in urban education study?
2. How do dominant ideologies about education/learning/achievement become ‘palatable’ in society?
3. How is urban education framed in public discourse?
Assigned reading:
Cross, Beverly E. 2009. "Urban School Achievement Gap as a Metaphor to Conceal U.S. Apartheid Education." Theory into Practice 46(3): 247-255.
Monday, December 1
Urban schools and special education.
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. How has special education helped to (re)segregate education?
2. Who is disproportionately represented in ‘soft’ categories in special education?
3. How does an ‘urban’ context play into this?
Assigned reading:
Blanchett, Wanda J. 2009. "A Retrospective Examination of Urban Education: From Brown to the Resegregation of African Americans in Special Education—It is Time to 'Go for Broke'." Urban Education 44(4): 370-388.
Wednesday, December 3
Reform, accountability and charter schools.
Lecturer: Erin McCloskey.
Questions for today:
1. What are charter schools
2. How has corporate America become involved in education, particularly in urban areas?
3. How has the trifecta of accountability, innovation, and choice come to be seen as a panacea for ‘curing’ the achievement gap?
Assigned reading:
McDermott, Kathryn A. and Kysa Nygreen. 2013. "Educational New Paternalism: Human Capital, Cultural Capital, and the Politics of Equal Opportunity." Peabody Journal of Education 88: 84-97.
Monday, December 8
Last day of class.
Lecturer: Tim Koechlin.
Assigned reading:
Carpenter, Zoe. 2014. "What's Exceptional About Ferguson, Missouri?" The Nation, August 23.
Sunday, December 14
Take-home exam due.
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