Fall 2007
Tues & Fri: 12:30- 1:50
Anthro Lab
Anthropologists have developed a variety of approaches to the study of urbanism as a fundamental facet of the human experience in recent millennia. Through a survey of cases, from Sumer to Mexico City to Miami, we will explore a range of techniques and theoretical approaches and evaluate their contributions to our contemporary understanding of the nature and culture of cities. The seminar will focus on several themes, including the origin of cities, conflict in relation to class, ethnicity, and racialized constructions, urban change, and urban planning.
Requirements and Evaluation
Readings will include the texts listed below and a large body of material available on reserve. Several videos are also scheduled to be shown on Monday evenings in the Anthro Lab at 7:30 pm., on the weeks indicated on the syllabus. Evaluation of student performance will be based on class participation and three papers of 1500 words each (6 double-spaced pages). These papers will take the form of critiques, each addressing at least two reading assignments from the syllabus in a comparative focus, plus two outside sources in support of the critical arguments. Students will be encouraged to share their outside sources by compiling a class bibliography throughout the semester.
1995 First Cities. St. Remy Press, Montreal // Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C.
2002 Urban Life. 4th edition. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights.
2003 The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.
1993 City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. University of California Press, Berkeley
1985 The World Goes to Town. The Economist, May 5. [ER]
1985 (orig. 1842) An American Railroad. Lowell and Its Factory System. From American Notes. A Journey, by C. Dickens: 61-69. [ER]. Also available online at www.readbookonline.net/read/2388/11499/ -- read section on the Lowell Factory System.
1968 (orig. 1845) The Great Towns. From The Condition of the Working Class in England (W.O. Henderson and W.H. Chaloner, trans.): 30-87. [ER]
1968 The Idea of the City in European Thought: Voltaire to Spengler. In Urbanism in World Perspective (S. Fava, ed.): 409-24. [ER]
1921 The Nature of the City. From The City, by M. Weber. Also in Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities (R. Sennett, ed., 1969): 23-46. [ER]
2002 (orig. 1938) Urbanism as a Way of Life. In Gmelch & Zenner: 65-82.
1996 The Anthropology of Cities: Imagining and Theorizing the City. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25: 383-409. [ER]
1993 The Geography of Emptiness. In The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space (R. Rotenberg and G.M. McDonogh, eds.): 3- 15. [ER]
2002 (orig. 1996) The Metropolis and Everyday Life. In Gmelch & Zenner: 93-105
Sept 11 Films: Berlin: Symphony of a City; Metropolis (Monday, 7:30pm).
2005 Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City: Issues of Scale, Integration and Complexity. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 9 (2): 89-109. [ER]
1989 Rubbish! The Atlantic Monthly, December: 99-109. [ER]
1997 Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground. Historical Archaeology, 31 (3): 84-106. [ER]
Sept 14 Andrews: Chap. 1.
2002 The Earliest Cities. In Gmelch & Zenner: 3-19.
2002 (orig, 1955) The Preindustrial City. In Gmelch & Zenner: 20-31.
1950 The Urban Revolution. Town Planning Review 21: 3-17. Also in The Rise and Fall of Civilizations (J.A. Sabloff and C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, eds., 1974): 6-14. [ER]
Sept 18 Andrews: Chaps. 2-5.
1995 The Tapestry of Power in a Mesopotamian City. Scientific American, 272 (4; April): 118-23. [ER]
2001 The Pyramid Builders. National Geographic, 12 (5; November): 78-99.
1997 The City State in Ancient China. In The Archaeology of City States. Cross Cultural Approaches (D.L. Nichols and T.H. Charlton, eds.): 71-90. [ER]
1982 The Temples of Angkor. National Geographic, 161 (5; May): 548-89. [ER]
1998 The Giza Pyramids: Accommodating Tourism, Leisure and Consumption. City & Society, Annual Review, 1998: 105-19. [ER]
2003 (orig. 1991) A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 363-69.
Sept 25 Film: El Mirador: A Preclassic Maya City (In class).
1987 An Early Metropolis Uncovered: El Mirador. National Geographic, 172 (3; Sept.): 316-39.
1970 Tikal, Guatemala, and Mesoamerican Urbanism. World Archaeology, 2: 186-98. [ER]
1995 The Timeless Vision of Teotihuacán. National Geographic, 188 (6; Dec.): 2-35.
1976 The Internal Structure of Tenochititlan. In The Valley of Mexico (E.R. Wolf, ed.): 287-302. [ER]
Oct 2 Andrews: Chap. 8.
1994 Early Andean Cities. Scientific American, 270 (6; June): 66-72. [ER]
1975 Chan Chan: Andean Alternative of the Pre-Industrial City. Science, 187 (4173): 219-25. [ER]
1998 City and Countryside in the Inka Empire. Chapter 8 from The Cities of the Ancient Andes, by A. von Hagen and C. Morris. [ER]
Oct 9 Film: El Norte (Monday, 7:30)
1996 Mexico's Megalopolis. In I Saw a City Invincible. Urban Portraits of Latin America (G.M. Joseph and M.D.Szuchman, eds.): 181-201. [ER]
2007 Borderlined in the Global City (of Angels). In Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City (Alev Cinar & Thomas Bender, eds.): 37-54. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. [ER]
2002 (orig. 1966) The Culture of Poverty. In Gmelch & Zenner: 269-78.
2002 How Urban Ethnography Counters Myths about the Poor. In Gmelch & Zenner: 279-95.
2002 (orig. 1996) Migration and Adaptation: Tzintzuntzeños in Mexico City and Beyond. In Gmelch & Zenner: 193-204.
Oct 23 Film: Midnight Cowboy (Monday, 7:30 pm).
1963 Modern Social Pathology. In Emile Durkheim. Selections from his work, with an introduction and commentaries by George Simpson: 69-84. Thomas Y. Crowell, NY. [ER]
2002 (orig. 1970) The Urban Experience: A Psychological Analysis. In Gmelch & Zenner: 83-92.
2002 (orig. 1996) Surviving in the City: Coping Strategies of Female Migrants in Nairobi, Kenya. In Gmelch & Zenner: 235-52.
1997 The Country and the City on the Copperbelt. In Culture/Power/Place (A.Gupta and J. Ferguson, eds.): 137-54. [ER]
Oct 26 Film: Urban Garden: Fighting for Life and Beauty (in class)
1997 Research Report: Community Gardens in New York City. North American Dialogue 4 (1). Available at http://www.stpt.usf.edu/-jsokolov/311gardenpap.htm
2001 Poverty and Homelessness in U.S. Cities. In Cultural Diversity in the United States (Ida Susser and Thomas C. Patterson, eds.): 229-49. Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MS. [ER]
Oct 30 Film: Avalon (Monday, 7:30 pm).
2003 The Sweetness of Home: Class, Culture and Family Life in Sweden. In Low & Lawrence-Zuņiga: 142-59.
1966 Urban Marginality and Ethnographic Practice: On the Ethics of Fieldwork. City & Society, Annual Review, 1996: 108-18.
2003 (orig. 1998) Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 284-97.
2002 (orig. 1996) Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. In Gmelch & Zenner: 115-26.
1983 Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. Read excerpts.
2003 (orig. 1992) Myth, Space, and Virtue: Bars, Gender, and Change in Barcelona’s Barrio Chino. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 264-83.
Nov 6 Film: Do the Right Thing (Monday, 7:30 pm)
1997 Justice/Just Us: Rap and Social Justice in America. In The Urbanization of Injustice (A. Merrifield and E. Swyngedouw, eds.): 161-79.
1987 The Colonial Polo Club: An Examination of Class Processes in the Suburban-Rural Fringe. In Cities of the United States: Studies in Urban Anthropology (L. Mullings, ed.): 198-216.
Structure and Symbol
2003 (orig. 1971) The Berber House. In Low & Lawrence-Zuņiga: 131-41
2003 The Architecture of Female Seclusion in West Africa. In Low & Lawrence-Zuņiga: 160-83.
2003 The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear. In Low & Lawrence-Zuņiga: 284-97.
1977 The Morphology of Walled Capitals. From The City in Late Imperial China, by G.W. Skinner: 75-100. [ER]
Nov 13 Film: Wild Style (Monday, 7:30 pm).
2001 The City as Misè-en-scène: A Visual Exploration of the Culture of the Politics in Buenos Aires. Visual Anthropology Review, 17 (1): 36-59. [ER]
2003 (orig. 1982) Ordonnance. Discipline, Regulation. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 353-62.
1995 Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space. In Metropolis: Center and Symbol of our Times. Main Trends of the Modern World (Philip Kasinitz, ed.): 355-68. New York University Press, New York. Available at http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~broglio/1101/davis.html
2002 Human Health and the City. In Gmelch & Zenner: 32-52.
2000 From Colonial Neglect to Post-Independence Heritage: The housing landscape in the central area of Singapore. City & Society, XII (1): 103-24.
1996 Representation, Subjectivity and Ethics in Urban Gay Ethnography. City & Society, Annual Review,1996: 142-47.
1987 And the Band Played On. Read excerpts.
Nov 20 Film: Modern Times (Monday, 7:30 pm).
1997 The "Poor Man's Friend": Saloonkeeper's, Workers, and the Code of Reciprocity in U.S. Barrooms, 1870-1920. In The Making of Urban America, 2nd ed. (R.A. Mohl, ed.): 153-66. [ER]
1993 The Old House at Home (pp. 3-22), and All You Can Hold for Five Bucks (pp. 291-302) From Up in the Old Hotel. [articles originally published in The New Yorker in 1939-40]
1991 Within Site of the White House: The Archaeology of Working Women. Historical Archaeology, 25 (4): 82-108. [ER]
2003 After Authenticity at an American Heritage Site. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 370-86.
Nov 27 Film: The Japanese Version (Monday, 7:30 pm).
2003 (orig. 2001) Markets and Places: Tokyo and the Global Tuna Trade. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 284-97.
2007 Economy and Gender in the Urban Borderland: The Public Culture of Laleli, Istanbul. In Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City (Alev Cinar & Thomas Bender, eds.): 17-36. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. [ER]
1997 Looking to Get Paid: How Some Black Youth Put Culture to Work. From Yo Mamas Disfunktional: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, by Robin Kelley: 43-77. Beacon Press, Boston. [ER]
1993 City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami.
2002 Beyond Urban and Rural. Communities in the 21st Century. In Gmelch & Zenner: 53-60.
Dec 4 Film: Holding Ground (Monday, 7:30 pm).
2007 Sudden City. A feverish dream of the future springs from the sands in Dubai. National Geographic, 211 (1; January): 94-113.