Courses ofInstruction
Urban Studies
Program Faculty
Ervin Kosta, Sociology, Chair
Elizabeth Belanger, American Studies
Jeffrey Blankenship, Art and Architecture
Rob Carson, English and Creative Writing
Gabriella D’Angelo, Art and Architecture
Janette Gayle, History
Jack Harris, Sociology
Clifton Hood, History
Kirin Makker, Art and Architecture
Whitney Mauer, Environmental Studies
Nicola Minott-Ahl, English and Creative Writing
Urban Studies at HWS is the study of urban space in multiple, interrelated contexts. It is a multidisciplinary subject that engages a wide range of subject areas but is anchored in the social sciences: Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, and Political Science. These fields provide the research tools and theoretical framework for understanding the lived urban experience. Students also gain insight into urban experience in all its dynamism and complexity through the study of the arts, literature, and history, as well as through study abroad and direct engagement with the City of Geneva.
The program is multidisciplinary and uses a variety of analytical methods to study the life and problems of cities. The primary subject areas for the major are Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science, Sociology, and Environmental Studies. However, courses in American Studies, Art and Architecture, and English and Creative Writing are also relevant to give perspectives on urbanization beyond those offered in the main departments listed above.
Offering
Urban Studies offers an interdisciplinary minor. Any member of the program faculty can serve as an advisor for the minor, provided they agree to do so, but all individual programs approved by an advisor must also be approved by the program chair.
Urban Studies Minor
Interdisciplinary, 5 courses
Requirements:
Three core courses from two different disciplines and two elective courses from different disciplines selected from the list below. One of these five courses must be an upper level (300 or higher) course. All courses counting toward the minor must be completed with a grade of C- or higher.
Cross-Listed Courses
Core Courses
ANTH 206 Early Cities
ARCH 313 History of Modern Landscape Architecture
BIDS 207 Contemporary American Cities
ECON 213 Urban Economics
ENV 201 Community and Urban Resilience
HIST 215 American Urban History
HIST 264 Modern European City
SOC 251 Sociology of the City
SOC/URST 353 Global Cities
SOC/URST 210 Gentrification
Electives
ANTH 326 Patterns and Processes in Ancient Mesoamerica Urbanism
ARCH 312 Theories of Modern Architecture and Urbanism
ARCH 412 Social Construction of Space
BRAZ 210: Race in Rio
ECON 243 The Political Economy of Race
ECON 248 Poverty and Welfare
ECON 344 Economic Development
ENG 340 19th Century Architectural Novel
ENV 215 Environment and Development in East Asia
HIST 212 Historical Research Methods
HIST 237 Europe Since the War
HIST 240 Immigration and Ethnicity in America
HIST 246 American Environmental History
HIST 256 Technology and Society in Europe
HIST 310 Rise of Industrial America
HIST 311 20th Century America: 1917-1941
POL 211 Visions of the City
POL 244 Immigration and Diversity in Europe
SOC 214 Urban Ethnography
SOC 221 Race and Ethnic Relations
SOC 223 Inequalities
SOC 290 Sociology of Community
Course Descriptions
URST 210 Gentrification A term coined in 1964, gentrification refers to the return of the creative/professional middle classes to central city locations, where their quest for homes of interesting architectural provenance, cheap real estate and low rents, and proximity to cultural amenities often results in increasing rents and neighborhood upscaling that displaces existing working class residents. Despite its inability to challenge ongoing suburbanization in absolute terms, gentrification has nonetheless occupied a disproportionate amount of attention form sociologists, urban studies scholars, policymakers, as well as increasingly the mass media and the public interested in issues in urban decay and regeneration. This course will introduce students to the already voluminous literature on gentrification, focusing on earlier debates of the 'classical' era, such as production vs consumption explanations, to more recent theoretical developments that include planetary gentrification, commercial/retail gentrification, advanced or super gentrification, rural gentrification, etc. The course will make constant references to urban changes visible in downtown Geneva as well as more regional cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Students who have passed SOC 100, ANTH 110, POL 110, or ECON 160 with a minimum grade of C-, or permission of instructor, will be able to register for this course. (Kosta, offered every other year)
URST 353 Global Cities Global Cities is a course that introduces students to the variety of the urban experiences across the globe, particularly in light of the continuing breakneck urbanization across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. However, the enduring concept of "the global city" that gives this subject of urban studies its name is a complicated concept that simultaneously critiques both the centralization of the Western European urbanization experience, moored as it was in a particular version of industrialization that's no longer the urban norm, as well as the set of "Chicago school" style theories that sought to theorize that Western European urban experience. (Kosta, offered every other year)