INTRODUCTORY CORE

Concepts in Social and Cultural Analysis
V18.0001  4 points.
A gateway to all majors offered by the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. It focuses on the core concepts that intersect the constituent programs of SCA: Africana Studies, American Studies, Asian/Pacific/American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Latino Studies, and Metropolitan Studies. The course surveys basic approaches to a range of significant analytical concepts (for example, property, work, technology, nature, popular culture, consumption, knowledge), each one considered within a two-week unit. Because the course is team-taught and the instructors for it vary from semester to semester, there are sometimes slight alterations in the concepts covered in different terms.

Introduction to Metropolitan Studies
V18.0601  Formerly MAP V55.0631, equivalent to Introduction to Metropolitan Studies (V99.0101). Brenner, Molotch. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
A broad and interdisciplinary introduction to the field of urban studies, surveying the major approaches deployed to investigate the urban experience in the social space of the modern city. Explores the historical geography of capitalist urbanization with attention to North American and European cities, to colonial and postcolonial cities, and to the global contexts of urban development. Major topics include urban politics and governance; suburban and regional development; urban social movements; urban planning; the gendering of urban space and racial segregation in urban space.

Cities in a Global Context
V18.0602  Formerly V99.0103. Rademacher, Ralph, Zaloom. Offered in the spring. 4 points.
What is a global city? How does a global perspective shape our understanding of urban spaces and the politics of creating social and spatial order in cities? This course draws on ethnographic examples from a range of cultural and geographic contexts to explore 21st- century urbanization. Through examples that range from London to Shanghai, the course traces how issues like equity, migration, violence, ecology, and citizenship can inform an understanding of modern cities.

ELECTIVE COURSES (AREAS 1, 2, 3)

AREA 1: SOCIAL WELFARE AND PUBLIC POLICY: ECONOMICS, POVERTY, HEALTH, EDUCATION, FAMILIES, AND LAW

Law and Urban Problems
V18.0610  Formerly V99.0232. Lasdon. Offered in the fall. 4 points.
Interdisciplinary introduction to the law as it interacts with society. Focuses on problems in areas such as housing, zoning, welfare, and consumer affairs, emphasizing the underlying social, economic, and political causes of the problems and the responses made by lawmakers and courts. Readings are drawn from the law and social science. No specific knowledge of law is required.

Work and Wealth in the City: The Economics of Urban Growth
V18.0612  Formerly V99.0243. Zaloom. Offered every other year. 4 points.
The financing of complex American cities raises related issues about the changing character of work in the city and the organization of wealth and city finances in contemporary urban America. This course examines a diverse set of questions about the forms of capital needed to maintain a city, the economics of regional development, the role of taxes in supporting ser-vices and urban development, the job structure of a metropolitan area, and the types of incentives necessary to maintain a diverse labor force.

Community Empowerment
V18.0613  Formerly V99.0244. Brettschneider. Offered in the spring. 4 points.
Empowerment is defined as those processes, mechanisms, strategies, and tactics through which people, as well as organizations and communities, gain mastery over their lives. It is personal as well as institutional and organizational. This course addresses these issues in a wide variety of community settings. The course is designed to be challenging and rewarding to those students interested in helping people work together to improve their lives.

Urban Economics
V18.0751  Formerly V99.0310. Identical to V31.0227. 4 points.
See description under Economics (31).

Government of New York City
V18.0752  Formerly V99.0370. Identical to V53.0364. 4 points.
See description under Politics (53).

Urban Government and Politics
V18.0753  Formerly V99.0371. Identical to V53.0360. 4 points.
See description under Politics (53).

American Dilemmas: Race, Inequality, and the Unfulfilled Promise of Education
V18.0755  Formerly V99.0041, V11.0041, and V18.0501. Identical to E27.0041. 4 points.
Historically, education has been the most accessible and effective means for groups to achieve social mobility in American society. However, access to public education has never been equal for all segments of society, and there continues to be considerable variability in the quality of education provided to students. As a result of both explicit and subtle discrimination, racialized minority groups have at various times been denied access to education or been relegated to inferior schools or classrooms. Yet education has also been the arena where the greatest advances in social justice and racial equality have been achieved. Understanding the contradictions created by the hope and unfulfilled promise of American education is a central theme of this course.

AREA 2: URBAN CULTURE AND IDENTITY: CULTURE OF THE CITY AND THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY

Urban Cultural Life
V18.0608  Formerly V99.0216. 4 points.
Few cities enjoy as rich a cultural life as New York City, with its galaxy of neighborhoods, museums, galleries, theatres, concert halls, and alternative spaces. Through walking tours, attendance at cultural events, and visits to local cultural institutions, students explore the definition of urban culture. Sites include the familiar and the unfamiliar, the Village and the outer boroughs. Students examine the attributes that constitute culture and community from an interdisciplinary perspective. Readings and films expand their understanding of these concepts.

Culture of the City
V18.0620  Formerly V99.0247. Offered in the spring. 4 points.
Urban culture is a complex, fantastic part of daily life, encompassing everything from vaudeville, the public library, opera, and dance to the local bar, social club, and graffiti. By considering cities to be sources of cultural invention, this course explores, through literature, history, social science, and student experience, the evolution of high and popular culture, both modernist and postmodernist. Emphasis is on how cultures create bonds between specific interest groups and on how culture becomes the arena for acting out or resolving group conflict.

New York City in Film
V18.0623  Formerly V99.0275. 4 points.
Analyzes the way New York has been portrayed in some of the classic films about the city. In turn, the course examines how these stories have helped shape the city’s image of itself. The goal is to see how each particular film originated at distinct moments both in the city’s history as well as in the history of filmmaking. In so doing, the course combines the perspectives of both urban studies and film studies, placing films within their cultural, political, and artistic content.

The Latinized City
V18.0252  Formerly V99.0305 and V13.0305. 4 points.
See description under Latino Studies (18).

Multiethnic New York
V18.0363  Formerly V99.0349 and V15.0310. 4 points.
See description under Asian/ Pacific/American Studies (18).

Chinatown and the American Imagination
V18.0370  Formerly V99.0353 and V15.0607. 4 points.
See description under Asian/ Pacific/American Studies (18).

Writing New York
V18.0757  Formerly V99.0180. Identical to V41.0180. 4 points.
See description under English (41).

The Irish and New York
V18.0758  Formerly V99.0325. Identical to V57.0180, V58.0180. 4 points.
See description under Irish Studies (58).

Urban Anthropology
V18.0759  Formerly V99.0329. Identical to V14.0322. 4 points.
See description under Anthropology (14).

Cities, Communities, and Urban Life
V18.0760  Formerly V99.0350. Identical to V93.0460. 4 points.
See description under Sociology (93).

Art of the City
V18.0761  Formerly V99.0030. Identical to V93.0030, E20.1030. 4 points.
A broad introduction to the political and spatial dynamics of artistic production in 20th- and 21st-century cities. Artists are viewed as makers of culture but also of urban character and geography—essential components in the elaborate divisions of labor that create the global metropolis. Readings and lectures draw from a range of historical periods, geographic locations, and artistic genres.

New York City: A Social History
V18.0831  Formerly V99.0330. Identical to V57.0639. 4 points.
See description under History (57).

AREA 3: THE MATERIAL CITY: THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, PLANNING, AND DEVELOPMENT

Urban Environmentalism
V18.0631  Formerly V99.0285. MacBride. Offered every other year. 4 points.
Examines some of the many environmental issues facing people living in cities and towns around the world. It focuses on the practical, everyday realities of these issues, why they exist, and what can and should be done to change them. It uses these particularities to consider larger questions about the relationship between human society and the natural world in the urban context. Employing the analytic tools of sociology, the course grapples with ideas from economics, political science, philosophy, geography, and natural science to develop a theoretical framework for understanding environmental issues facing cities today.

Shaping the Urban Environment
V18.0762  Formerly V99.0320. Identical to V43.0661. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Decision Making and Urban Design
V18.0763  Formerly V99.0321. Identical to V43.0670. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Environmental Design: Issues and Methods
V18.0764  Formerly V99.0322. Identical to V43.0672. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Cities in History
V18.0765  Formerly V99.0323. Identical to V43.0662. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Urban Design and the Law
V18.0766  Formerly V99.0327. Identical to V43.0674. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Seminar in Urban Options for the Future
V18.0767  Formerly V99.0622. Identical to V43.0675. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Urban Design: Infrastructure
V18.0768  Formerly V99.0326. Identical to V43.0673. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

History of City Planning: 19th and 20th Centuries
V18.0769  Formerly V99.0650. Identical to V43.0663. 4 points.
See description under Art History (43).

Expressive Culture: Images—Architecture in New York Field Study
V55.0722  4 points.
See description under Foundations of Contemporary Culture (55).

Modern Hispanic Cities
V95.0650  Conducted in Spanish. 4 points.
See description under Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures (95).

Independent Study
V18.0997,0998  Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. 2 to 4 points per term.

RESEARCH COURSES

Senior Research Seminar
V18.0090  Prerequisites: V18.0001, V18.0601, V18.0602, and V18.0651. 4 points.
An advanced research course in social and cultural analysis. It culminates in each student completing an extended research paper that makes use of various methodology skills. Students work individually and collaboratively on part of a class research project pertaining to their major. Majors must enroll in the fall of their senior year.

Research Methods in Metropolitan Studies
V18.0651  4 points.
Introduces an array of social scientific research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, for research in urban studies. Topics range from ethnography to survey research to social statistics, among others. Includes practical, hands-on application of the research methods. Majors must enroll in the spring of their junior year or before.

Internship Program

Internship Fieldwork
V18.0040  Corequisite: V18.0042. 2 or 4 points. Ten hours of fieldwork are required for 2 points; 15 hours for 4 points.

Internship Seminar
V18.0042  Corequisite: V18.0040. Brown. Section 1: General Internship. Nonprofit and government agencies. 2 or 4 points. Section 2: Legal Aid Internship. Students work directly with the criminal justice division of the Legal Aid Society. 4 points.
The 4-point internship program complements and enhances the formal course work of the metropolitan studies majors. Students intern at agencies dealing with a range of issues pertaining to metropolitan studies and take a corequisite seminar that enables them to focus the work experience in meaningful academic terms. The goals of the internship are threefold: (1) to allow students to apply the theory they have gained through course work, (2) to provide students with analytic tools, and (3) to assist students in their exploration of professional career paths. The internship is open to juniors and seniors and requires an interview and permission of the director of internships. Majors are required to take the internship program for 4 points but may choose to register for 8 points. Majors who choose to take the internship for 8 points count the additional 4 internship credits as an elective.