Cultural Representations:
Cityscapes
- Course Number: ENGL 122CS
- Prerequisites:
Check on GOLD.
- Advisory Enrollment Information:
May be repeated for credit providing letter designations are different.
- Catalog Course Entry: ENGL 122AA-ZZ
- Quarter: Fall 2011
May be repeated for credit to a maximum of 28 units provided letter designations are different.
This seminar examines different representations of the modern metropolis from the 19th to the 21st century, by turning to literature, cinema, and urban theory. The city and urban life crucially shaped the experience of modernity. From fin de siècle Paris to 1920s Berlin, to mid-twentieth century Algiers to contemporary London, New York, Dubai, and L.A., we will study urban space in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Zola, J.G. Ballard, Hanif Kureishi, Buchi Emecheta, Roland Barthes and Georges Perec, together with current critiques of urbanism (David Harvey, Rem Koolhaas, Mike Davis, Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord). Topics for discussion will include: the crowd, walking in the city, looking and the spectacle of consumption, shopping, public vs. corporate space, women in the city, colonialism, the multicultural city, and the immigrant experience. Films: Berlin Symphony of a City, Playtime (1967), The Battle of Algiers, Unknown Code, and The Matrix.