DURB 22A10 - Urban Places Seminar

Cities are places where complex economic, social, political and spatial processes converge. This course explores how cities are read, experienced, governed, designed and contested through multiple disciplinary lenses including fields of sociology, economics, geography, phenomenology, environmental, political science, behaviour, urban law and policy, urban design and planning. Through readings of scholarly positions and places, discussions, observations, mapping exercises, presentations, and engagements with city officials, students will critically examine the making and meaning of urban places across the Global North and South. The course combines theoretical inquiry with reading-mapping urban places and encourages students to engage with cities and their governance in the future.

The course is introductory. No prior knowledge or reading is required. All materials for reading and mapping will be provided a week in advance of the class.

‘Interleaving’, involving multiple avenues of engagement with learning, serves as teaching pedagogy to reinforce conceptual connections in an era of AI. Interleaving incorporates a variety of avenues to learning including in classroom keen reading, exercises for reading and mapping urban places, reflective responses to books by each student and classroom discussions/ debates, which intend to spur critical and original thinking among students.

Specific activities include:

• Mapping places in groups
• Short individual or group writing exercises
• Having students talk to each other
• Polling and asking questions
• Problem solve
• Classroom debate
• Elicit student input by asking questions

My reference: https://ablconnect.harvard.edu/activity-types

Week 02 to 10: In class response papers, oral presentations to books assigned each week to students in succession across: 30%

Week 06: Mid-term group assignment (groups of 3): 30% A presentation in class on writing and representing urban places (to be specified in class). The presentation includes drawing maps accompanied by individual reflective essay of 750 words which is an addendum.

Week 12: Final assignment: Reflective response paper (4000 words): 30%; includes key concepts from the course in relation to a city of the student’s choice

All weeks: Class participation 10%