GEOG 303 - Advanced Debates in Urban Studies

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This seminar focuses on selected issues of importance in Urban Studies. Topics vary according to the instructor. The course is required of all majors and may be taken during the junior or senior years; it can be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.

Topic 2017/18b: Memory, Planning, and Placemaking. (Same as URBS 303 ) Urban memory and heritage are increasingly important sources of cultural identity, tourism, community development, and political symbolism in our globalized world. Cities recognize heritage sites, historic districts, monuments and landmarks, memorials, nature preserves and other special areas as strategies of placemaking – the social, spatial, and symbolic processes by which distinctive places are planned and authorized by governmental authority. This seminar focuses on the role of place memory in the planning and governance of global cities. We consider both official historic designations and grassroots efforts of “counter-memory” to recognize underappreciated and marginalized groups. By examining the continuities and ruptures of collective memory in cities, this seminar explores how processes of remembrance (and forgetting) affect society, space, politics, community, and identity. Field trips examine the making of historic places in the Hudson Valley and New York City. After examining the theory and practice of historic placemaking, students carry out research on sites of their own choosing. Brian Godfrey.

One 3-hour period.

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