Admission requirements
This course is only available for students in the BA Urban Studies.
Description
This course is intended to be both an introduction to the history of the city and to the field of Urban Studies. In the first part of the course students will follow a series of lectures on the history of the city. In the second part of the course students will learn about important concepts of Urban Studies through lectures and tutorials. The course will address various aspects of the four themes in the second year: The Multicultural City; The Safe City; The Healthy City; the Sustainable City.
As an introduction to the city, the course will address a variety of questions: What is a city? Why are cities important? How did cities develop? What are the most important political, economic and social functions of cities historically? Why do people live in cities? Why are cities important for explaining long term social-economic and cultural trends in history? This course gives an overview of the most important key variables that help to explicate and distinguish cities in world history: power and governance, socio-economic development, population and migration, culture, and environment.
As an introduction to the field of Urban Studies, the course will address the key questions, key thinkers and key trends in Urban Social Geography. Key concepts will help explain how cities play a crucial role in culture and identity, who has the most power to control cities, the impact of built environment on people in the city, and how cities are perceived as both dangerous places and places of diversity and opportunity.
Course objectives
The student is able to:
Identify key questions and topics regarding cities in world history (1500-present), as formulated in the handbook Cities in World History. These questions relate to: power and governance; socio-economic development; population and migration; culture; and environment.
Test format: Written (questions in midterm and final examination)Classify and recognize key concepts in Urban Social Geography, as formulated in the handbook Urban Social Geography. These concepts relate to: scientific approaches; economic growth; formation of cultures; social inequality and segregation; institutions; identity; and environment.
Test format: Oral (debate in tutorial) and written (questions in midterm and final examination)Summarize and reproduce the most important social, economic and cultural developments in the history of cities (1500-present). The developments relate to the above mentioned questions.
Test format: Written (questions in midterm and final examination)Apply the above mentioned key concepts in Urban Social Geography, verbally in the tutorials and .
Test format: Oral (debate in tutorial) and written (questions in midterm and final examination)Plan and schedule his/her study: organise and use relatively large amounts of information.
Test format: Oral (debate in tutorial) and written (questions in midterm and final examination)
Timetable
The timetable is available on the BA Urban Studies website
Mode of instruction
Lecture
Tutorial
Course Load
Total course load is 5 EC (1 EC = 28 hours), equal to 140 hours, devoted to:
Lectures: 24
Tutorials: 8
Reading literature/preparing for exams: 108
Assessment method
Assessment
The learning objectives in this course will be assessed through two subtests:
Midterm examination: a written examination with closed questions and short open questions, based on the literature and the lectures of the first period.
Final examination: a written examination with closed questions and short open questions, based on the literature and lectures of the second period.
Oral: participation tutorial. The participation of students in the tutorial has to be sufficient. Students are expected to attend the tutorials, to read the literature discussed during the tutorials, and to participate actively in the tutorials.
Weighing
Midterm examination: 50%
Final examination: 50%
Resit
The resit exam will take place on a single resit, at which both subtests are offered. For this resit exam three hours will be reserved, so that students will be able to retake both subtests, if necessary.
Exam review
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Blackboard
Blackboard will be used for:
The time schedule of the course
The reading list
Powerpoints of the lectures
Announcements
All other information regarding the course
Reading list
Peter Clark (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (Oxford University Press, 2013). Students have purchased this book before the first lecture of the course.
Paul Knox and Steven Pinch, Urban Social Geography. An Introduction (6th edition, 2010). Available online: https://chisineu.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/urban-social-geography.pdf
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available on the website
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Not applicable