Draft syllabus

Jefferson Global Seminar

Hong Kong, summer 2014
Katya Makarova
em5d@virginia.edu
CITY AND MODERNITY
Course description
Cities are interesting, among other things, because they make visible and palpable the
intangible qualities of social life. The famous urban sociologist Robert Park called the
city a laboratory of social change. This course will enable you to explore the modern
city in its many forms, at different times and in different cultures, East and West. Close
attention to the ways in which cities are organized and inhabited allows us to explore
such questions as, what does it mean to be modern?, is modernity more than just
technology and industrialization?, and is modernity Western or are there other, nonWestern, forms of modernity?
The course explores the theories, concepts and contradictions of urban modernity through
an investigation of concrete cities. It examines the development of the modern city,
including such varieties as the socialist, colonial and postcolonial city. It also considers
the ways in which globalization affects urban space and urban cultures around the world.
Most classic urban theory relates to the development of the modern city in the West. But
the analytical tools developed also enable us to engage in a critical examination of more
contemporary urban developments in non-Western regions such as China or the Persian
Gulf. Cities such as Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Dubai are now at the very
forefront of global urbanism. Change is a normal feature of any society but the speed,
concentration and magnitude of social, cultural, economic and political changes in these
and other cities seem to be unprecedented. The most radical transformations of these
cities express an acute sense of a break with the past and the need to envision an
alternative future, to re-imagine the nation and society through the re-organization and reordering of physical and social space. In this sense the analysis of urban transformations
is one of the most revealing ways of understanding these momentous changes.
Our location in Hong Kong gives us an unparalleled opportunity not only to explore one
global city in detail, but also to use it as a testing-ground for theories about modern urban
developments and the possible futures of urbanism.
The course is multidisciplinary and does not require any prior knowledge of sociology or
any other particular discipline.
Course Format

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For four days a week we will hold daily seminars. The fifth day will be devoted to field
trips and group work on student projects. Occasionally we will use one afternoon session
for group discussions and other research activities, such as library work.
Students will work in small groups to make regular field visits to particular sites in the
city. Hong Kong provides a perfect case for exploring many of the topics in the course,
both in itself and for comparative purposes. Each group will write weekly journals of
field observations and reflections. This will culminate in group oral presentations at the
end of the course. Additionally, each student will write a paper (5-7 pages) on a particular
question raised by the course.
Course Assessment
Course assessment will be based on the following:
Weekly group journal of observations and reflections on field visits 30%
Individual paper (5-7 pages) - 40%
Group oral presentation on field project 10%
Class participation and discussion 10%
Weekly (up to one page) written analytical responses to the course readings 10%
Readings
All course readings will be available on Collab. Additional material, recommended for
your field work and papers, will be available in the HKUST library.

Course Outline and Reading Assignments

Week I: June 11-13
Introduction to the course
L. Mumford, What is a City?
A. King, Worlds in the City: From Wonders of Modern Design to Weapons of Mass
Destruction, in Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity
The pre-modern city and its transformation
L. Lofland, The Preindustrial City, in A World of Strangers: Order and Action in
Urban Public Space
G. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City
M. Girouard, Manchester and the Industrial City
Situating Hong Kong: Workshop on urban ethnography and observation
G. McDonogh and C. Wong, Global Hong Kong, ch.1
A. Abbas, Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance, (selections)

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P.Cookson Smith, The Urban Design of Impermanence: Streets, Places and Spaces in
Hong Kong (selections)
Visit to the Hong Kong Museum of History

Week II: June 16-20

The Making of the modern city
D. Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity (selections)
M. Berman, Introduction and ch.3.3, The Family of Eyes, in All That Is Solid Melts
Into Air: The Experience of Modernity
P. Hall, The Apotheosis of the Modern: New York 1880-1940, in Cities in Civilization
(selections)
Le Corbusier, New York is Not a Completed City
R. Murray, Fordism and Post-Fordism
M. Berman, ch. 5.1, Robert Moses: The Expressway World, in All That Is Solid Melts
Into Air: The Experience of Modernity
Film (in class): Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
C. Chaplin, Modern Times (clips)
Critiques of modernity
J. Scott, ch. 4 The High Modernist City: An Experiment and Critique in Seeing Like a
State: How Certain Conditions to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
G. Wright, Boulevard Muhammad V from Z. Celik et al., eds., Streets: Critical
Perspectives on Public Space
The city and alternative modernities?
A.Cinar, The Imagined Community as Urban Reality: The Making of
Ankara, in A. Cinar and T. Bender, eds., Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City
D. Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949-2005
Wu Hung, selections from Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a
Political Space
Field trips and work in groups

Week III: June 23-27

New forms of urban space and urban culture?
T. Campanella, ch. 2, Reclaiming Shanghai, and ch. 3, The Politics of the Past, in
The Concrete Dragon: Chinas Urban Revolution and What It Means for the World

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Image, art and culture as strategies of urban renewal
M.C. Boyer, Cities for Sale: Merchandising History at South Street Seaport, in M.
Sorkin, ed., The New American City and the End of Public Space
T. Campanella, ch. 5, City of Chai, in The Concrete Dragon: Chinas Urban
Revolution and What It Means for the World
The city as a theme park
Z. Celik, Urban Preservation as Theme Park: the Case of Sogukcesme Street from Z.
Celik et al., eds., Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public Space, 1994
T. Campanella, ch. 9, Theme Parks and the Landscapes of Consumption, in The
Concrete Dragon: Chinas Urban Revolution and What It Meant for the World
B.Bosker, Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China (selections)
The city and the world: globalization from below
G. Mathews, Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking. Mansions, Hong Kong,
(selections)
Field trips and group work
Week IV: June 30-July 3
Public space and public culture
J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (selections)
R. Sennett, The Spaces of Democracy
A. Ku, Making Heritage in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the Central Police Station
Compound, in The China Quarterly, June 2010, pp. 381-399
K. Makarova, On Creating the Conditions of Sociability in the City: Reflections on the
Public/Private Divide in Urban Life, Proceedings of the Beijing Forum, 2013, pp. 451474
July 1 public holiday
Urban Futures?
N. Ouroussoff, The New, New City, New York Times Magazine, June 8, 2008
T. Campanella, Epilogue, China Reinvents the City, in The Concrete Dragon: Chinas
Urban Revolution and What It Meant for the World
D. Brooks, Dubai Inc. Proudly Presents the International City, in A History of Future
Cities
July 3

Conclusion to the course and group presentations