English

Students are introduced to a range of graphic skills that can be used to observe, record, and analyze urban settings in order to substantiate proposals for improvement. It combines the value of traditional free-hand sketching and technical drawing techniques with digital graphic tools and software, which are becoming increasingly important in the way we think, design, and communicate our ideas, in the contemporary information e-rich environment. Students work in small teams to develop their creativity and employ the practical skills taught in class to investigate an allocated urban streetscape in the surrounding area of UCL in London. They produce presentation panels that communicate coherent, clear, and legible information on urban analysis, before proceeding to produce a poster that reasons an inclusive environment proposal.

The aim of this course is to provide basic knowledge about current racialized formations of gender, citizenship, and migration. Social, economic, political as well as cultural dimensions of citizenship and migration are addressed. The course engages with key theoretical debates in the field, in particular postcolonial and feminist conceptual investigations of citizenship, (non)belonging, and migration.

This is the second of a three-module course on qualitative research methods. This module builds on what students have learned in part I and is designed to guide them through the steps of data collection for their qualitative study. Students work on gaining access to their research site and begin the interview process and/or their observations and conversations with their research participants as participant observers. Students are introduced to the process of transcribing the interviews, coding the data, and memo writing. All three steps are part of qualitative data analysis. As students develop their research projects, they are challenged to link their specific research questions to larger processes and forces. They also are asked to consider who might find their research useful and how the results of their investigations might be utilized to promote social change. In-depth analysis of the intricacies underlying contemporary social, cultural, and political discourses and practices, provides the basis for good social research. This is a time and labor-intensive skills training, especially once data collection has begun. Most of the required work occurs outside of the class setting. Students are expected to work independently and should count on having to invest an extra two to four hours per week in interviewing, transcribing the interviews, and working on the data collection.

This course enables students to take a critical stance towards the developments within contemporary art as well as towards the manner in which art is dealt with both scientifically and in the economic practices that concern it. For this purpose it shows how the canonical conceptualization of art and the nature of art itself within the metaphysical tradition end in a crisis, in which the accomplishment of both the metaphysical way of thinking and the metaphysical form of art coexists with a new beginning of both these spheres. Rather than proceeding historically, the course involves students in a hands-on study of some core aspects of the outlined crisis, so as to foster both their artistic sense and their analytical capacities in a manner that is attuned to the environment in which they need to operate. The course discusses topics including what is philosophy of art; The first man was an artist; the economist as an artist (and vice versa); metaphysics, aesthetics, and metaphysical art; the path of modernity; art of the end and art of the beginning; space and time in painting, music, sculpture, and poetry; the science of space and time; the science of art; and artistic economics.

The course helps students build their compositional skills and contextualize various theoretical concepts through analytical exercises and stylistic writing. Students explore a variety of musical pieces throughout the course to develop their skills for analysis of common practice European music. Through close listening and analysis, students learn about the use of melodic motives, repetition, variation, and harmonic progressions to write their own simple compositions. While prior experience with music composition is not required, a familiarity with music theory rudiments is highly recommended.