• header Image

Urban Worlds

Home/ Urban Worlds
Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core NSGA1DCU101 4

Course coordinator and team : Rachna Mehra

The course introduces students to the field of global urbanism. It lays out the concepts and patterns in urbanization from prehistoric to ancient times and then to the specific city forms produced in the colonial and post-colonial period. These sites will be studied from the aspect of density, ecosystem, heterogeneity, occupational specialization, cultural dynamics and social organization.

Objectives

  • To get introduced to vocabulary, forms and process of urban evolution
  • To identify and appreciate themes related to socio urban formations

Expected Learning Outcome:

On the completion of the course, students will be able to understand

  • urban spaces and processes across history and geographies
  • develop a comparative understanding of urbanism
  • gain ability to read diverse material and write systematically

Overall structure:

This course is organized around six units.

 

Topic / Unit

Duration

1.

What is a City?

2 weeks

2.

Ancient and Medieval Cities

3 weeks

3.

Colonial Urbanism

2 weeks

4.

Industrial and Post-industrial Cities

2 weeks

5.

Conurbations

2 weeks

6.

Speculative or Smart Cities?

1 week

Required Readings

  • V Gordon Childe “The Urban Revolution”, The Town Planning Review, Vol. 21, No.1 (Apr., 1950), pp. 3-17
  • R Ramchandran Urbanization and Urban Systems in India, (OUP), 2001. (Chapter1-2)
  • Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory, (Pearson 2013), pp.310-374
  • Upinder Singh A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From Stone Age to 12th Century, (Pearson, 2009), pp. 132-181.
  • Pius Malekandathil and Yogesh Sharma, Cities in Medieval India, (Primus, 2014), pp.1- 83.
  • H.D.Chipande (2016). ‘Mining for Goals: Football and Social Change on the Zambian Copperbelt, 1940s-1960s’. Radical History Review 125: 55-73
  • J. Bonnerjee (undated). ‘Colonial Capitals: Kolkata and Delhi’, Module prepared for UGC-Epathshala coures ‘Sociology of Urban Transformations’.
  • Eds F. Engels (1845). "The Great Towns", in Condition of the Working Class in England. Available from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/ condition-working- class/ch04.htm
  • M. Rousseau (2013). Post-industrial cities: towards a new approach. Metropolitics. Available from http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Post-industrial-cities-towards-a.html.
  • D. Hartley (2013). ‘Urban Decline in Rust-Belt Cities’, Economic Commentary. Available http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.360.6256&rep=rep1&type= pdf.
  • Flint (2017), Dir: Bruce Beresford
  • W. Cox (2011). The evolving urban form: Delhi. New Geography. Available from http://www.newgeography.com/content/002545-the-evolving-urban-form-delhi.
  • J. Sayuri (2014). Unstable Macrometropolis. Pesquisa. Available from http:// revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/2014/07/22/unstable-macrometropolis/.
  • R.F. Hunwick (2014). China’s eerie faux-European Ghost Towns. The Atlantic. Available from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/chinas- eerie-faux-european-ghost-towns/282872/

Assessment structure (modes and frequency of assessments) The course will have three types of assessment situations.

 

Top