Spring Program:
Global Cities Urban Realities
A UC Construct Program
Spring 2015 London courses
Policing London: Policy, Law and the Police in the Global City
Prof. Michael Owens and Dr. James Heartfield
This course explores the relationship between the police, the judicial system and policy makers in London. Students will learn the history of the police force in the UK and the developments that have formed the Metropolitan Police in London today. Topics covered will include: corruption, race relations, policing major demonstrations and riots, and the impact of government policy on policing. Students will explore the politics behind decisions and the framework of the law. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: History/Political Science/Urban Studies
After the Empire: Diversity and Integration in Britain
Britain's social make-up today owes a lot to the way that the country related to the wider world, not least the expansion of the British Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centures. In the twentieth century, though, Britain withdrew from its Empire, under pressure from anti-Colonial movements and the United Nations.
Once the "workshop of the world" in the nineteenth century, when the Empire covered so much territory that the sun never set upon it, Britain in the twentieth century struggled to find a role in the post-colonial world. The country that sent so many of its citizens out to colonize America and Austrialia, and to rule over India and Africa, received millions of migrants from its former colonies in the latter half of the twentieth century. The British identity that was formed through domination gave way to an identity based upon a rich racial and cultural diversity--but not without problems and conflicts.
This course examines Britian's post-colonial make-up by examining the many strands that make up Britain today, focusing on the capital London. Through talks and visits students will look at the many strands that make up the world city that is London. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: History/Political Science/Sociology
Health, Urbanism and Social Change: London, 1850 to the present day
The aim of this course is to explore questions of health and disease as they relate to London, from the mid-nineteenth century through to the present day. It will cover issues as diverse as the cholera epidemics of the early 1800s and the public health response to them, the late-nineteenth century push by sanitary scientists for urban green spaces as a means to promote health amongst the urban poor, and the more contemporary issues of poverty and health inequality, resurgent tuberculosis and the so-called obesity epidemic. While diverse in thematic focus, the course will argue that a shared concern runs through each of the themes covered: namely a recognition that the environment plays a crucial role in shaping people’s life chances. By the end of the course, you will recognize how influential place-based thinking has been, and continues to be, to public health responses to health and disease in the city. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Urban Studies/Political Science/Geography
Spring 2015 Paris Courses
Differing Diversities: The Politics of Belonging in France
Prof. Stéphane DUFOIX & Prof. Will BISHOP
France's history with social and ethnic diversity is very different from that of the United States, even though the revolutions that founded the two republics are separated by no more than thirteen years and were nourished by the same Enlightenment philosophical tradition. If the United States thinks of itself as a multicultural "melting pot," France has a tendency to think of itself as a revolutionary nation. Both of these images of how one belongs to either nation have a grain of truth, but both are also far from encompassing the fully problematic sense of belonging to either country. This interdisciplinary course will explore how diversity has (and has not) been articulated in France's political traditions and how these traditions inform contemporary social situations. Articles in political theory and sociology will help students gain an idea of the ways social scientists studying France have articulated the relations between nation, citizenship, and cosmopolitanism. Literary accounts will serve as an experiential lens to help us understand the concrete implications of these notions. This course seeks to give students a fuller idea of the complexity of belonging in France. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Sociology/Comparative Literature/Political Science
Documenting the Periphery: Identity and Citizenship in the “Other” Part of Paris
Prof. Carole VIERS-ANDRONICO
This interdisciplinary course will examine the socioeconomic and political disenfranchisement experienced by residents of the "other France" – a France comprised of working-class citizens often of immigrant origin and from France’s former colonies. It will introduce students to urban sociology by requiring that they focus on the particular problems experienced by social actors who live in economically and socially disfavored parts of Paris. Topics covered include urban sociological theories, de-facto segregation, poverty, crime, schooling, public policy, national identity, the negotiation of bi-culturality, and the French secularizing mission. Students will investigate these topics from a variety of sources, ranging from documentary film and photojournalism to literary and cinematic expressions. Via these sources, they will become familiar with a vibrant urban "vernacular" culture that contests issues pertaining to citizenship, racialization and representation. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Urban Studies/Sociology/Comparative Literature
(Un)veiling the Republic: France in the Muslim World and the Muslim World in France
Prof. Mariam HABIBI
While Charles Martel is said to have heroically “saved” France from invading Muslims in 732, today, France has the highest percentage of Muslims in Europe. This interdisciplinary course draws from the fields of history, political science, sociology, and international studies to examine the fraught relations between France and the Muslim world over the centuries. The class will be broken up into two sections. In the first section, it will look at France’s historical presence in the Arab world and the consequent Muslim presence in France. In the second section, it will focus on French society today and evaluate the socio-political integration process of French Muslims. Topics covered include colonization and decolonization, Islamic heritage and its clash with the French secularizing mission, and political policies on Muslims in France such as the heated issue over the veil. Students will investigate these topics from a variety of sources, ranging from historical documents and cultural criticism to journalistic and cinematic expressions. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: History/Political Science/Sociology
Directed Study
Prof. William Bishop
The directed study course provides students an opportunity to conduct research on a topic related to the overall theme of the Perspectives on the Global City program. The course meets once per week for two hours and will take the form of a workshop. Students in the course will complete a research project on a topic of their choice by participating in workshops with their instructor and peers at key moments in the research and writing process. For their topics, students may choose from the list of suggested topics below or propose a topic of their own design, subject to approval in advance by the instructor. In addition to writing a research paper, they will lead a presentation and discussion of their topic in the final class. Students will develop research and presentation skills and will use a range of resources available in Paris. 2.0 credits.
Suggested subject areas for this course: Anthropology/Comparative Literature/Ethnic Studies/European Studies/Film and Media Studies/History/Global and International Studies/Political Science/Sociology/Urban Studies
Suggested Topics:
- Street Art/Photography as Social Protest
- Banlieue/Beur Filmmaking – Reclaiming Representation in the Housing Projects
- Global City Museums – Controversies surrounding the Quai Branly & the CNHI
- Intramuros Multi-cultural Neighborhoods (La Goutte d’Or & Belleville): Sites of Integration or Urban Marginality?
Please note: students opting to enroll in the directed study course will be asked to commit to a research topic approximately two weeks prior to their arrival in Paris.