The City

I’ve been thinking a lot about space and time lately in various contexts despite my best interests or desires. One such result is a concept for an upper division undergrad class on the city.

The City: Theory, Practice and Fiction.

Neuromancer – the sprawl, chiba city
Snow Crash – the avenue, burbclaves
Manuel Castells – space of flows, space of places, megalopolis, information age
Mike Davis. City of Quartz – LA
Michel de Certeau – practices, pomo
Walter Benjamin. Arcades Project – modernity, flaneur
Ross(?) – Celebration (Disney City), designed city
WTC – rebuilding ideas
Seidensticker – Tokyo Rising, rebuilding city
modernist city
pomo city
Venturi – Learning from Las Vegas
Le Corbusier (?) – Image of city with exact replicated buildings over and
over again

The class would look at the city and its relationship to life in in the transitions to modernity and pomo, concepts of organic vs. planned cities and the purpose of a city, the turn of the 21st C writings about the future of the city, and finally representations and viisons of the city in popular cultural texts. The class would engage with the concept of time, space, place and the (unhelpful) naturalization of the city within modern discourse.