City Cultures, Urban Ecologies

How have cities been imagined, navigated, and represented? What are some of the cultural, social, political, and environmental challenges that cities face in the 21 st century? This subject examines how the city has been theorized as a core concept of modernity and modernization or represented through various aesthetic practices (photography, film, tv, literature, essays), moving from key cultural theorists of the city and urban life to case studies of city cultures and urban practices. By exploring everyday urban ecologies alongside creative and political interventions that transform urban life, the subject seeks to understand how cities are sites of pleasure, inclusion and diversity but also spaces of struggle, alienation and isolation.

• 1Demonstrate a complex knowledge of the history and cultural processes that inform different ideas of the city
• 2Apply a range of theoretical concepts informed by cultural studies to examples of urban culture and practices
• 3Demonstrate independent critical thought alongside generosity and curiosity about new ideas and approaches to the study of city cultures and urban ecologies
• 4Understand the relationship between representations of cities and the everyday practices of particular urban experiences
• 5Demonstrate intellectual honesty and ethical values in the study of diverse urban cultures
• 6Apply interdisciplinary cultural studies methods to the study of cities and urban culture.