Urban Studies

The city and language course introduces students to French history, culture, and language through team-taught instruction. In the “City as Public Forum” sessions, students are introduced to French history and culture through a series of lectures and site visits. Students discover some of the fascinating ways the core principles of social justice were tested in theory and practice on the streets of Paris in the past and explore how they evolved into the pillars of French society today. The course focuses on just how an ideal society should be forged, where all are free individuals and members of a cohesive community at the same time. Trying to make individuals believe—as religions do—in the primacy of the collective, and in its concomitant goal of protecting human rights, is at the core of social justice in France. From 52 B.C.E to today, France has been an exemplar of how—and how not—to construct a just society. To render these values visible, and therefore legible, to all by adding a physical dimension—whether constructive or destructive—to the usual means of establishing laws or setting policies, is what distinguishes the history of France's capital city of Paris. Those who control Paris—be they monarchs, revolutionaries, or presidents, past and present—believe that erecting all kinds of physical structures will render their values concrete and immutable. The ideal French society did not always necessarily mean a democratic or inclusive one. Since the French Revolution, however, institutionalizing the concept of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” has been France's greatest universal achievement and a source of constant upheaval, eliciting a unique form of secular activism that has led to targeting buildings and monuments that no longer reflect the collective's values. Students discuss how the diverse social actors, who constitute “the French,” continue to thrust their bodies and minds into the physical spaces of the public sphere in the pursuit of social justice. In the “Unlocking French” sessions, students learn targeted language skills through situational communication, so they have the opportunity to use everything they learn as they go about their daily activities. Advanced French students will participate in conversation courses on the program’s theme.

This course discusses the various creative fields in which Barcelona has been a pioneer. Topics include: urban design, art, culture, design and fashion, theater, dance, music.

The course covers the main themes of London's contested geography and history: London as a trading city, as an Imperial center, and as the seat of both traditional authority and Parliament. Looking at the peopling of London, the course explores the transformation of British society through inward migration, and the way that the social contract was made and remade again with each generation that populated the city. Students examine the social changes and political debates that have shaped London, and the country's idea of "who we are." Lastly, the course explores London's social problems from slum clearance to gentrification and "social cleansing."

The 19th century saw the reinvention of the subterranean. From the sewers in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables to the striking miners of Émile Zola’s Germinal, novelists began exploring the space beneath their feet. By the turn of the century, the opening of the Paris catacombs to the public and the construction of the metro system fueled the collective imagination, while the hidden strata of history and consciousness were being charted by the developing fields of archaeology and psychoanalysis. In the early to mid-20th century, the subterranean was as much a metaphor as it was a reality, with artists and philosophers drawing inspiration from newly discovered prehistoric cave paintings and the French Resistance returning once again to Hugo’s sewers. This class follows modernity as it goes underground. This course discusses topics including French and Parisian history and culture, urban text and its expressions in literature and film, and historical events and reinterpreting them in the context of their reliance on hidden historical and cultural undercurrents.