Urban Studies

This course introduces students to the intersection of urban geography and the geography of globalization, with the aim of understanding key references in academic debates, and their relevance for real-world social, economic, and political issues in our cities today. The course offers a critical, human-geographical perspective on "global cities," how these manifest in different parts of the world, how they matter for distinct realms of urban life, and how we can study features of global urban geography. Themes include empires, development, and cities; global cities; "Third World cities" or "cities of the global South"; urban spaces of neoliberalism; new geographies of urban theory; and planetary urbanization. Students examine cases related to migration, sexual minorities, the circulation of ideas, and gentrification. Examples come from both the "global North" and the "global South," with the aim of helping students understand when and how these categories may be useful.

This is an laurea magistrale course and is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course introduces students to the emerging field of urban studies in connection to climate change issues. The principle topics covered include the relationship between two global driving forces: urbanization and climate change; different theoretical and methodological tools used to understand, manage, and deal with the transformation of cities facing climate; and different approaches that promote more sustainable and resilient forms of urbanization and urban life. Climate change and unprecedented planetary urbanization remain two of the most urgent issues of our time, reshaping societies. Climate change has worldwide implications - from the exacerbation of urban inequalities, to the loss of environmental, social and economic security. In this regard, sustainable urbanization has moved more and more to the forefront of policy agendas and research. The course uses several theoretical approaches and empirical studies, and focuses on the forms and impact of urbanization processes; how climate change impacts different social groups in our urban systems; and post-carbon cities: adaptation and mitigation strategies being currently implemented.

What can individual citizens contribute to making cities greener and more ecological? Will a concept of a climate‐friendly and healthy city grow over this ‐ in the truest sense of the word? And how specifically can urban and private areas be gardened? What are private and municipal strategies for dealing with urban gardens and their implementation? What are the costs to cities of private urban gardening? Which horticultural and which structural engineering aspects have to be considered? Which psychological and healthy effects does a green city have on its inhabitants? What kind of biodiversity exists in green cities? These questions form the thematic framework of this course. The questions are dealt with and answered within an interdisciplinary framework.

The course enables students to develop an understanding of contemporary dimensions of citizenship as a way of thinking through how these shape and are shaped by cities.  This understanding includes an awareness of the different kinds of primary, secondary, and gray sources available for the study of cities and citizenship. The course uses case studies from the global North and South to explore the political, economic, social, and cultural processes that shape cities and citizenship as connected sites of people's sense of identity and belonging.

In antiquity, the city as idea and as experience provided a central trope for Greeks and Romans to think about their place in the world, their social and political organization, the relationship between culture and nature, self and other, morality, and history. This course focuses particularly on the presence of urban everyday life in classical literature and asks students to explore ancient representations through the lenses of cultural history and current critical approaches to the city. Our starting point is to think about what is ‘natural’ to us and put it at a critical distance: the ways in which the city has featured in literature and film in modernity. Students proceed to explore the extent to which these modern representations and their cultural context find antecedents in antiquity. Students pay special attention to urban space (house/home, street, theater, baths and barbershops) as well as time and occasion (city at night, erotic city, landscapes of disaster, routine).