Catalogue 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Urban Studies Program
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Director: Tobias Armborst;
Steering Committee: Tobias Armborst (Art), Pinar Batur (Sociology), Lisa Brawley (Urban Studies and Associate Dean of the Faculty), Brian J. Godfreya (Geography), Maria Hantzopoulos (Education), Timothy Koechlin (International Studies), Osman Nemli (Philosophy), Leonard Nevarez (Sociology), Samson Okoth Opondo (Political Science), Tyrone Simpson, IIa (English), Erica Stein (Film);
Participating Faculty: Tobias Armborst (Art), Pinar Batur (Sociology), Nancy Bisaha (History), Susan Blickstein (Geography), Lisa Brawley (Urban Studies and Associate Dean of the Faculty), Heesok Chang (English), Mita Choudhury (History), Mary Ann Cunningham (Geography), Eve D’Ambra (Art), Yvonne Elet (Art), Dustin Frye (Economics), Brian J. Godfreya (Geography), Maria Hantzopoulos (Education), Timothy Koechlin (International Studies), Amitava Kumar (English), Candice M. Lowe Swift (Anthropology), Erin McCloskey (Education), Molly S. McGlennen (English), Lydia Murdoch (History), Osman Nemlia (Philosophy), Molly Nesbit (Art), Leonard Nevarez (Sociology), Barbara A. Olsen (Greek and Roman Studies), Samson Okoth Opondo (Political Science), Hiram Perez (English), Sidney Plotkin (Political Science), Ismail O. D. Rashid (History), Louis Römer (Anthropology), Tyrone Simpson, IIa (English), Erica Stein (Film), Yu Zhou (Geography).
a On leave 2022/23, first semester
b On leave 2022/23, second semester
After declaration of the major or correlate sequence, no NRO work will be permissible or applicable to the major.
Major
Correlate Sequence in Urban Studies
Urban Studies: I. Introductory
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URBS 100 - Introduction to Urban Studies Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
As an introduction to urban inquiry, this course focuses on the historical evolution of cities, socio-spatial conflicts, and changing cultural meanings of urbanism. We examine the formation of urban hierarchies of power and privilege, along with their attendant contradictions and social movements of contestation, in terms of the rights to the city and the prospects for inclusive, participatory governance. Instructors coordinate the course with the assistance of guest presentations by other Urban Studies faculty, thereby providing insight into the architecture, cultures, economics, geography, history, planning, and politics of the city. The course involves study of specific urban issues, their theory and methodology, in anticipation of subsequent work at more advanced levels. Timothy Koechlin.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 106 - Philosophy & Contemporary Issues
1 unit(s)
Topic 2021/22b: Incarcerating Philosophies. (Same as PHIL 106 ) This introductory philosophical course examines the topic of “Incarcerating Philosophies”. Philosophy is used both as a justification to incarcerate as well as that which is incarcerated. This course offers a philosophical survey of various relevant literatures in order to ask the following questions: What are the different methods and rationalities employed in order to incarcerate, and how are those methods used to fashion the incarcerated, criminal body? How have various Western philosophical programs and approaches, figures and texts responded to such incarcerating methods in order to question and oppose them critically and immanently? Readings include: Plato, Boethius, Jeremy Bentham, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Luther King Jr., Michel Foucault, Angela Davis, Frank Wilderson III, Michelle Alexander, Lisa Guenther, and others. Osman Nemli.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 144 - Living in the Ancient City
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ART 144 and GRST 144 ) The great Mediterranean cities of Classical Antiquity, Athens in the 5th c. BC and Rome in the 1st-2nd c. CE (along with some of their satellite cities), are synonymous with the rise of western civilization. The city plans and monumental architecture dominate our view, but this course also focuses on the civic institutions housed in the spectacular buildings and the social worlds shaped by the grand public spaces, as well as the cramped working quarters. Neighborhoods of the rich and the poor, their leisure haunts, and places of congregation and entertainment are explored to reveal the rituals of everyday life and their political consequences. Eve D’Ambra.
Second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 180 - Writing About American Citiscapes Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 180 ) Beginning with visual and written descriptions of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire (today’s Mexico City), this seminar explores visual and discursive representations of American cities from the colonial encounter to the present. Interpretations of urban landscapes have shaped the practice of planners, builders, artists, and activists in cities across the Americas.
By introducing students to philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s theory of urban space—as materially, socially, and symbolically produced—this seminar invites students to reflect critically on the role of writing, representing, and intervening in public space in giving meaning to the built environment of North and Latin American cities.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
Urban Studies: II. Intermediate
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URBS 200 - Urban Theory Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course reviews the development of theories regarding human behavior in cities and the production of space. The course spans the twentieth century, from the industrial city to the themed spaces of contemporary cities. Literature and topics examined to include the German school, urban ecology, debates in planning and architecture, political economy, and the cultural turns in urban studies. Brian Godfrey.
Prerequisite(s): URBS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 202 - Public Policy and Human Environments
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 202 , ESCI 202 , ESSC 202 and GEOG 202 ) This course combines the insights of the natural and social sciences to address a selected topic of global concern. Geographers bring spatial analysis of societal and political-ecological changes, while Earth Scientists contribute their knowledge of the diverse natural processes shaping the earth’s surface. Together, these distinctive but complementary fields contribute to comprehensive understandings of the physical limitations and potential, uses and misuses of the Earth’s natural resources.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 211 - Rome: The Art of Empire
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 211 and GRST 211 ) From humble beginnings to its conquest of most of the known world, Rome dominated the Mediterranean with the power of its empire. Art and architecture gave monumental expression to its political ideology, especially in the building of cities that spread Roman civilization across most of Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa. Roman art also featured adornment, luxury, and collecting in both public and private spheres. Given the diversity of the people included in the Roman empire and its artistic forms, what is particularly Roman about Roman art? Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 -ART 106 or GRST 216 or GRST 217 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 219 - The First Cities: The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 219 and GRST 219 ) The art, architecture, and artifacts of the region comprising ancient Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey from 3200 BCE to the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE. Beginning with the rise of cities and cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, course topics include the role of the arts in the formation of states and complex societies, cult practices, trade and military action, as well as in everyday life. How do we make sense of the past through its ruins and artifacts, especially when they are under attack (the destruction wrought by ISIS)? Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or 106 or one unit in Greek and Roman Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 223 - Cinemas and Urbanisms Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as FILM 223 ) The cinema is one of the technologies, like mass transit and electricity, that made rapid urbanization in the early 20th century possible. Cities were one of early cinema’s favorite subjects, and their population density provided the audiences media industries needed to flourish. A quarter of the way through the 21st century, as the global population is increasingly urbanized and our lives, wherever we live them, are increasingly mediated, the relationship of cinematic media and cities becomes ever more inextricable. The course surveys the development of that relationship over the past 125 years. We explore how cinema developed a standardized grammar for imagining the city and taxonomizing some of its key features, the role cinematic technologies played in shaping (and contesting) urban redevelopment, the architectures that determine how cities house moving images, and the uses to which the entertainment industry and citizens alike put the cinema as ti shapes our daily lives in the city. Throughout our explorations, we encounter deadly tourists in Glasgow, enchanted lovers and slaughterhouses in Paris, ghosts in Dakar, small-time mobsters in New York, detectives in over their heads in Tokyo, and travelers in Sao Paolo. Assignments include two papers, a group presentation, and a creative project on the cinematic image of the Hudson Valley region. Erica Stein.
Prerequisite(s): FILM 175 , FILM 209 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 225 - Renaissance Italy
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 225 ) This course examines the history of Italy between 1300 and 1565. Italian intellectual, political, and religious history is emphasized, but some attention is also given to cross-cultural, gender, and social history. Looking beyond Italy, we also consider developments in Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and their impact on Italy and Europe. Topics to be covered include the Black Death, the rise of humanism, the Renaissance papacy, and the Catholic Reformation. Finally, throughout the course, we question the meaning of the term “Renaissance”: is it a distinct period, a cultural movement, or an insufficient label altogether? Nancy Bisaha.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 229 - Paris and London: Society and Culture in the Early Modern City, 1500-1800
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 229 ) Between 1500-1800 European society experienced upheavals caused by cataclysmic events such as the Reformation and major shifts in economic and political organization. And it was Europeans living in urban areas – Europeans of different social status, faith, and ethnicities – who experienced these changes most intensely. This course investigates how two of the most dynamic cities in early modern Europe, London and Paris, changed from essentially medieval cities to urban metropolises. We look at the changing material, religious, and political conditions of London and Paris over two centuries and explore how the peoples of these two cities articulated and made sense of such changes. The central focus of the class will be examining how the identities of Parisians and Londoners as urban dwellers underwent transformations during this period. Sumita Choudhury.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 230 - Making Cities
1 unit(s)
This course surveys the production of urban space, from the mid 19th century industrial city to today’s post-bubble metropolis. Theories of urban planning and design, landscape architecture, infrastructure and real estate development are discussed in the context of a broad range of social, cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped urban space. Looking at American and European case studies, we ask: Who made decisions on the production of urban space? How were urban interventions actually brought about? Who were the winners and losers? Tobias Armborst.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 232 - Pathways for Sustainability
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 232 and GEOG 232 ) We all want a sustainable and climate-smart future, but how do we get there? Communities at all scales, from colleges to cities to global institutions are seeking answers to this question. To have agency in transitions toward sustainability, we need to understand the range of approaches and practices available, and we need to understand a number of general issues: How do differences in scale and regional context create or constrain possibilities? How do we learn new approaches to decision-making with sustainability in mind? How do transitions toward carbon neutrality imply transformations in social relations and structures of production? Our aim here is to understand the ways communities and institutions address these questions as they envision a road map for putting sustainability principles into practice. We focus largely on the pivotal issue of energy, but we also address related topics such as building and transportation infrastructure, landscapes, and food systems. We draw on transformative examples from the US, Europe, and Asia to find pathways through the existential challenges of the climate crisis and sustainability goals.
Students must be available for a mandatory 4-day field trip to New York City during October Break. Mary Cunningham.
Prerequisite(s): One course in Geography, Environmental Studies, or Urban Studies.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 237 - Urban Sociology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 237 ) Since the late 19th century, sociology has contributed to the historic formation and evolving agenda of urban studies. This course introduces classical sociological studies of the urban, from German sociologists like Georg Simmel to the so-called Chicago school of sociology, and their elaboration and challenge by later generations of sociologists. In many ways, traditional sociological concepts of neighborhood, stratification, deviance, and urbanism inform contemporary research on unanticipated urban phenomena, like gentrification and megacities. Elsewhere, sociologists have shaped multidisciplinary inquiries into public space, political economy, and place. We survey these disciplinary developments with added focus on the global forces and urban change visible in Poughkeepsie and the larger New York metropolitan area. Leonard Nevarez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 240 - Global History of Modern Architecture and Urbanism I: Race, Capital, and Empire Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 240 ) A period of emancipations, industrial development, dramatic urban growth, imperial expansion, nation formation, migrations, and cultural exchange, the long nineteenth century (1789-1914) saw the rise of new theories and practices of architecture and urbanism. This course offers analytic tools to investigate canonical and non-canonical buildings and urban landscapes, critical histories of the relationships between local and global culture, race, and space, and the projects of modernization, modernity, and modernism. Luisa Valle.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 245 - The Ethnographer’s Craft
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 245 ) This course introduces students to the methods employed in constructing and analyzing ethnographic materials through readings, classroom lectures, and discussions with regular field exercises. Students gain experience in participant-observation, fieldnote-taking, interviewing, survey sampling, symbolic analysis, the use of archival documents, and the use of contemporary media. Attention is also given to current concerns with interpretation and modes of representation. Throughout the semester, students practice skills they learn in the course as they design, carry out, and write up original ethnographic projects. Daniel Schniedewind.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 248 - Housing Crises and Activism Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 248 ) This course investigates the political economy of housing in the United States and beyond from a critical theoretical and historical perspective. With an eye toward the pursuit of housing justice, we examine the diverse causes and possible remedies of inequitable housing markets, segmentation by race and class, residential displacement, and conditions of housing insecurity. Through readings, lectures, discussions, and projects, we focus on issues central to the study of housing: the politics of land and property; real-estate development and speculation; financialization and property markets; gentrification and dispossession; land-use planning and housing policy; community and housing activism, and others. We analyze specific housing movements and tenant campaigns to connect these broad themes and processes to the particularities of time and place. The class aims to provide a robust analytical framework to better understand the uneven political economies, social relations, and geographies of housing.
Prerequisite(s): A previous course in Geography or Urban Studies.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 250 - Urban Geography: Space, Place, Environment
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 250 ) Now that most of the world’s population lives in urban areas, expanding city-regions pose a series of social, spatial and environmental problems. This course focuses on the making of urban spaces, places, and environments at a variety of geographical scales. We examine entrepreneurial urban branding, sense of place and place making, geographies of race and class, urbanization of nature, environmental and spatial justice, and urban risk and resilience in facing climate change. Concentrating on American urbanism, case studies include New York City, Poughkeepsie, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Students also research specific issues in cities of their own choice, such as land-use planning and public space, historic preservation, transit-oriented development, urban ecology and restoration, urban sustainability programs, and citizen movements for livable cities. Brian Godfrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 252 - Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 252 and INTL 252 ) The largest and fastest wave of urbanization in human history is now underway in the Global South—the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Most of the world’s urban population already resides here, where mega-cities now reach massive proportions. Despite widespread economic dynamism, high rates of urbanization and deprivation often coincide, so many of the 21st century’s greatest challenges will arise in the Global South. This course examines postcolonial urbanism, global-city and ordinary-city theories, informal settlements and slums, social and environmental justice, and urban design, planning, and governance. We study scholarly, journalistic, and film depictions of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in Latin America; Algiers and Lagos in Africa; Cairo and Istanbul in the Middle East; and Beijing and Mumbai in Asia. Brian Godfrey.
Prerequisite(s): A previous Geography or Urban Studies course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 254 - Victorian Britain Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 254 and GNCS 254 ) This course examines some of the key transformations that Victorians experienced, including industrialization, the rise of a class-based society, political reform, and the women’s movement. We explore why people then, and historians since, have characterized the Victorian age as a time of progress and optimism as well as an era of anxiety and doubt. Lydia Murdoch.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 255 - Race, Representation, and Resistance in U.S. Schools
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 255 and EDUC 255 This course interrogates the intersections of race, racism and schooling in the US context. In this course, we examine this intersection at the site of educational policy, media and public attitudes towards schools and schooling- critically examining how representations in each shape the experiences of youth in school. Expectations, beliefs, attitudes and opportunities reflect societal investments in these representations, thus becoming both reflections and driving forces of these identities. Central to these representations is how theorists, educators and youth take them on, own them and resist them in ways that constrain possibility or create spaces for hope. Kimberly Williams Brown.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 256 - Bilingualism and/in K-12 Public Education Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 256 and LALS 256 ) Learning in schools where the language of instruction is new presents a challenge familiar to young immigrants and refugees across the globe. This affects their educational achievement, as well as their sense of inclusion and belonging in their new communities. This course examines the issue of education for English Language Learners through a field based experience. The hands-on component of the course is paired with readings that draw from bilingual education, critical theories of pedagogy, education policy, migration,, and education for social change. A group research and writing project is intended to highlight the academic needs of local ELLs, to examine the current instructional models for bilingual students. The course is open to all Vassar students interested in (a) community-based learning as a tool for social change; (b) learning about the experiences of bilingual students in Poughkeepsie schools; and (c) gaining practical experience researching bilingual education policy. Tracey Holland.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 257 - Genre and the Postcolonial City Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 257 and POLI 257 ) This course explores the physical and imaginative dimensions of selected postcolonial cities. The theoretical texts, genres of expression and cultural contexts that the course engages address the dynamics of urban governance as well as aesthetic strategies and everyday practices that continue to reframe existing senses of reality in the postcolonial city. Through an engagement with literary, cinematic, architectural among other forms of urban mediation and production, the course examines the politics of migrancy, colonialism, gender, class and race as they come to bear on political identities, urban rhythms and the built environment. Case studies include: Johannesburg , Nairobi, Algiers and migrant enclaves in London and Paris. Samson Opondo.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 258 - Sustainable Landscapes: Bridging Place and Environment in Poughkeepsie
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 258 ) Geographers have long understood the relationship of aesthetic landscapes and place to include concepts of identity, control, and territory. Increasingly we consider landscape aesthetics in the context of sustainability and environmental quality. How do these contrasting sets of priorities meet in the process of landscape design and land use analysis? In this course we begin by examining regional and local histories of landscape design and land use planning and their relationship to concepts of place, territory, and identity. We consider landscape ecological approaches to marrying aesthetic, land use planning, and environmental priorities in landscapes. We investigate local issues such as watershed quality, native plantings, and storm water management in the context of local land use planning in order to consider creative ways to bridge these once-contrary approaches to understanding the landscapes we occupy and construct. We focus on projects and topics related to the greater Poughkeepsie area.
Susan Blickstein.
Prerequisite(s): One 100-level course in Geography.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 264 - The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 264 and MEDS 264 ) Radical prototypes of creativity and self-organization were forged by the new groups of artists, writers, filmmakers and architects that emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century. They based themselves in the new metropolitan centers. The course studies the avant-gardes’ different and often competing efforts to meet the economic transformation that industrialization was bringing to city and country alike. Afterward, the role of art itself would be seen completely differently. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods and one weekly film screening.
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URBS 265 - Modern Art and the Mass Media: the New Public Sphere
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 265 and MEDS 265 . When the public sphere was reset during the twentieth century by a new order of mass media, the place of art and artists in the new order needed to be claimed. The course studies the negotiations between modern art and the mass media (advertising, cinema, TV), in theory and in practice, during the years between the Great Depression and the liberation movements of the late 1960s–the foundation stones of our own contemporary culture. As a consequence, the physical spaces of culture would be reimagined and designed. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 .
Two 75-minute periods and one film screening.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 268 - After 1968: Sustainable Aesthetics
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 268 or MEDS 268 . This course studies the emancipation of the visual arts after 1968, here and abroad, together with the political and philosophical discussions that guided them. Theory and practice would form new combinations. The traditional fine arts as well as the new media, performance, film, architecture and installation art are treated as part of the wider global evolution creating new theaters of action, critique, community and hope. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 .
Two 75-minute periods and one film screening.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 272 - “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air”: Modernity’s Global Story Through Architecture (1800s-1930s)
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 272 ) While the ideas that gave rise to an era that today is spoken of as the age of Modernity originated in the Enlightenment or even the Renaissance; architecture’s account of Modernity took an acute and unprecedented turn at the end of the nineteenth century, which coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Adolf Loos and F.T Marinetti rejected past architectural forms and championed minimalist structures that spoke to the new technological age. Antonio Gaudi and others created an ornate architecture known as Modernistá. In other parts of the world, Modernity’s tale involved movement of former slaves recasting Classical, Renaissance and Baroque architecture as their own, modern architecture. This class explores how the advent of Modernity into the world assumes many guises if narrated through the architecture people created. Adedoyin Teriba.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 273 - A Mirror Image: The Search for Self, Place & Home in Contemporary Architecture in the World, 1980s+
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 273 ) One could imagine that in the 1970s, the architectural movement known as the International Style looked back at the twentieth century with glee, surveying its spoils. It was after all, a style of architecture that held the century in thrall for almost 50 years; determining the built forms for much of the world in steel, glass and concrete. Le Corbusier for instance, likened architecture to a machine with parts that could be erected and function anywhere. Yet voices arose to articulate local architectural responses to such a paradigm, where the interrelationship between self, place, identity and home needed to be articulated in built form. The phrase that became the rallying cry for such a movement was “Critical Regionalism” and this course analyzes how many architectural projects in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas embodied an approach to a more humane architecture. Adedoyin Teriba.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 274 - Buildings and Cities in Early Modern Italy Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 274 ) A history of architecture and urban design on the Italian peninsula, c. 1300-1700. We focus on the influential centers of Florence, Rome, and Venice, with reference to parallel developments elsewhere in Europe and the Mediterranean. Buildings and urban spaces are considered in social and political contexts, looking at the social structures as well as the patrons for which they were designed: governments, trade guilds, popes, nobles, and merchants. We study architectural and urban forms in relation to their functions, considering quotidian and ceremonial uses, the public and private spheres, and gendered spaces. Visual and textual evidence of performance, navigation, ritual, and sound reveal the varied ways that interior and exterior spaces could be experienced. Other topics include the changing role of the architect; individual versus collaborative design methods; the relation between theory and practice; new media; the transmission of memory; patterns of urban information exchange; manifestations of the ideal city; and the relation of urban, suburban, and rural topography. We investigate the designs and built work of such figures as Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio, Bernini, and Borromini. We also consider multimedia ensembles that blur traditional boundaries among art, architecture, urbanism, and landscape. Yvonne Elet.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 275 - Architectural Design I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 275 ) A studio-based class introduction to architectural design through a series of short projects. Employing a combination of drawing, modeling and collage techniques (both by hand and using digital technology) students begin to record, analyze and create architectural space and form. Tobias Armborst.
Prerequisite(s): ART 102 -ART 103 and permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 276 - Architectural Design II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 276 ) A studio-based course aimed at further developing architectural drawing and design skills. Employing a variety of digital and non-digital techniques students record, analyze and create architectural space and form in a series of design exercises.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 277 - America 1890-1990 “The Rise and Fall of “The American Century”
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 277 ) In 1941, Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life magazines, proclaimed the twentieth as “America’s century.” At mid-century, many Americans agreed with Luce’s view of the US as the preeminent global power By the 1980s, however, believing their country was in decline, more and more Americans began losing confidence in America’s greatness. Using primary sources that range from political pamphlets to Hollywood film, presidential speeches to oral interviews, this course looks at America’s rise to prominence after 1890 and the nation’s so-called decline nearly a century later. We pay particular attention to the social and political changes marking the growth of progressive reform from the 1890s to the 1970s, then trace the rise of conservatism during the final decades of “the American century.” Miriam Cohen.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 282 - American Landscapes: History,Politics,& Built Environments Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 282 ) This course invokes landscape as a means to study American history, politics, and geography. It introduces ways of seeing, interpreting, describing, and speculating on how everyday built environments in the United States and its colonial precursors have shaped and given meaning to social and political life. To that end, the class surveys the production and transformation of vernacular spaces at a variety of scales: fields, fences, rivers, houses, workplaces, parks, towns, billboards, road patterns, transit infrastructures, residential and commercial developments, and more. It pays close attention to the coincidence of social orderings and spatial forms: the hierarchical web, the interchangeable grid, the specialized complex, and the interconnected system. In so doing, it presents an eclectic history of lay and official attempts to understand, define, represent, plan, and intervene in the spaces and lives of ordinary people. Our overarching task in this class is twofold: to grasp how the making of landscapes inflects collective ways of being and to trace how the past continues to animate the multiple and overlapping worlds we inhabit.
The Department.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 288 - Planning History and Thought Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 288 ) This course invites students to consider major themes in the history of planning thought with an eye toward the political landscape of the present. How have towns, cities, and regions been figured, erased, and redrawn as distinct problem-spaces amenable to specific methods of intervention and reproduction? To what ends – and by whom – have those efforts been proposed and implemented? Taking the emergence and dissemination of ideas about space and social organization as windows into politics and the operation of power, the class maps the transatlantic history of planning thought onto the historical terrain of colonial and capitalist rule. From Enlightenment innovations to liberal and reform visions of order to more recent preoccupations over process and the optimization of systems, the class examines the work of particular theorists, the impact of broader intellectual movements, and the effects of novel planning and policy techniques. It also accounts for critical and radical planning frameworks as interventions in their own right. A primary objective of the course is to outline a social history of planning ideas that remains attuned to political conditions in cities and regions today. The Department.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual projects through the Office of Community-Engaged Learning, under supervision of one of the participating instructors. May be elected during the college year or during the summer.
Special permission.
Unscheduled.
Course Format: INT -
URBS 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research, uder supervision of one of the participating instructors.
Course Format: OTH
Urban Studies: III. Advanced
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URBS 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
A thesis written in two semesters for one unit. The Program. The Department.
Yearlong course 300-URBS 301 .
Course Format: INT -
URBS 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
A thesis written in two semesters for one unit. The Program. The Department.
Yearlong course URBS 300 -301.
Course Format: INT -
URBS 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 for 2023b: PRESERVING WHOSE CITY? Memory, Planning, and Placemaking. (Same as GEOG 303) ”Memoria” was a classical muse, symbolizing society’s existence in time and space, thereby linking the past, present, and future. In the 19th century, collective memory served “imagined communities” of nationalism, modernism, and urbanism. During the “memory boom” of the 20th century arose issues of genocide, holocaust, human rights, multiculturalism, historic preservation. Rather than being simple and transparent, collective memory has served a variety of interests and purposes.
Memory now fosters place identity, tourism, and symbolism in our globalized and urbanized world. Cities recognize heritage sites, historic districts, monuments and landmarks, memorials, and other special areas as strategies of placemaking – the social, spatial, and symbolic processes by which distinctive places emerge. While not a new phenomenon, placemaking now increasingly results from planning and branding campaigns by governmental, commercial, and community organizations.
This seminar focuses on the role of place memory in the planning, governance, and cultures of cities. We consider both official historic designations and grassroots efforts of “counter-memory” to recognize underappreciated and marginalized groups. 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.
Prerequisite(s): URBS 100 and URBS 200 or the equivalent, and permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 305 - Sculpture II
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 305 ) ART 305, “Space and Place,” is an advanced sculpture seminar in which students deepen and expand their practices of making in three dimensions. A series of independent sculpture projects are punctuated by rigorous group critique, with a focus on supporting each student carving out the unique constellation of ideas embodied in their artistic work. In conjunction with this constant studio production, each week we engage with the work of artists and writers who offer theories of space and place, including phenomenology, site-specificity, performance, multi-media installation, architectural interventions, and public art. We analyze space and place in relation to our bodies as sites of difference, looking at the ways the built environment is always social, political, and subject to transformation. Emphasis is equally placed on the formal and the conceptual, which we discuss as fundamentally interwoven in the practice of sculpture. Gordon Hall.
Prerequisite(s): ART 102 -ART 103 and ART 204 -ART 205 or permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 318 - Urban and Regional Economics Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ECON 318 ) An exploration of the nature and development of urban areas that begins with an examination of the theory of why cities grow and how individuals and firms choose their locations before covering patterns of land use, suburbanization, transportation, education, crime, and housing and their influence the growth of cities. Dustin Frye.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 201 and ECON 203 or ECON 210 ; or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 326 - Machiavelli: Power and Politics
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 326 ) This course examines the life and writings of one of the most fascinating and misunderstood thinkers of the early modern era. By situating Machiavelli (1469-1527) against the backdrop of his times, we gain insight into the Florentine Republic, Medici rule, the papacy, and devastating invasions of Italy by French, Spanish, and German armies. We also explore cultural movements like the study of antiquity by humanists and the rise of vernacular writing and bold new forms of popular expression and political discourse. Several of Machiavelli’s works are read, including his letters and plays, The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and The Florentine Histories, as well as some of the major modern interpretations of Machiavelli in historiography and political thought. Nancy Bisaha.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 352 - The City in Fragments
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 352 ) In this seminar, we use the concept of the fragment to explore the contemporary city, and vice versa. We draw on the work of Walter Benjamin, for whom the fragment was both a central symptom of urban modernity and a potentially radical mode of inquiry. We also use the figure of the fragment to explore and to experiment with the situationist urbanism of Guy Debord, to address the failure of modernist dreams for the city, and to reframe the question of the “global” in contemporary discussions of global urbanization. Finally, we use the fragment to destabilize notions of experience and evidence—so central to positivist understandings of the city—as we make regular visits to discover, as it were, non-monumental New York. Readings include works by Walter Benjamin, Stefano Boeri, Christine Boyer, Guy Debord, Rosalyb Deytsche, Paul Gilroy, Rem Koolhaas, Henri Lefebvre, Thomas Lacquer, Saskia Sassen, Mark Wigley, and others. . Lisa Brawley.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 356 - Environment and Land-Use Planning Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This seminar focuses on land-use issues such as open-space planning, urban design, transportation planning, and the social and environmental effects of planning and land use policies. The focus of the course this year is impacts of planning policies (such as transportation, zoning, or growth boundaries) on environmental quality, including open space preservation, farmland conservation, and environmental services. We begin with global and regional examples and then apply ideas in the context of Dutchess County’s trajectory of land use change and planning policies.
Topic 2022/23a: Re-Envisioning Poughkeepsie: From Automobility to Place. (Same as ENST 356 and GEOG 356 ) This seminar focuses on planning issues such as sustainable land use planning, urban design, mobility, equitable transportation planning, and social/economic effects of urban planning policies. Using the City/Town of Poughkeepsie as a laboratory, this seminar focuses on how transportation and land use planning decisions affect the social, economic, cultural, and environmental resources of neighborhoods and communities through an in-depth look at a catalyst site and its surrounding area.
We work in consulting teams to specifically examine the socio-economic, demographic, mobility and access issues involving the chosen site/study area, as well as environmental and planning concerns surrounding the history of Poughkeepsie’s transportation decision making, (including the construction of Route 9 and the “Arterial” in the 1960s and 1970s) and the transition of the local and regional economy away from industry to healthcare, educational services and tourism. Through fieldwork, readings and group exercises, we explore potential opportunities for re-envisioning the chosen site and strengthening its connection to surrounding neighborhoods. Susan Blickstein.
Prerequisite(s): One 200-level course in Geography, Urban Studies or Environmental Studies.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 367 - Urban Education Reform
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 367 ) This advanced seminar examines American urban education reform from historical and contemporary perspectives to understand the recent impetus to push towards privatizing the public educational system. In particular, this course helps you think about the origins, philosophies, and implications of recent public school reform initiatives that are generally driven by neoliberal market-based ideologies, as well as the possibilities for resistance, agency, and change on both the micro- and macro-levels. Particular attention is given to both large-scale initiatives as well as grassroots community based efforts in educational change. Our class also partners with local youth from area high schools. For the last hour of class, these young people come to our class and you work with them on thinking through what changes they would like to see in their own schools and districts. This also involves helping them collect data and research at their sites. Maria Hantzopoulos.
Prerequisite(s): EDUC 235 or permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 369 - Social Citizenship in an Urban Age
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 369 and HIST 369 ) During a 1936 campaign speech President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that in “1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy.” Since then “the age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production and mass distribution—all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem … . For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.” Therefore, the President concluded, government must do something to “protect the citizen’s right to work and right to live.” This course looks at how Americans during the twentieth century fought to expand the meaning of citizenship to include social rights. We study efforts on behalf of labor laws, unemployment and old age insurance, and aid to poor mothers and their children. How did these programs affect Americans of different social, racial, and ethnic backgrounds? How did gender shape the ways that people experienced these programs? Because many Americans believed that widening educational opportunities was essential for addressing the problems associated with the “new civilization” that Roosevelt described, we ask to what extent Americans came to believe that access to a good education is a right of citizenship. These issues and the struggles surrounding them are not only, as they say, “history.” To help us understand our times, we look at the backlash, in the closing decades of the twentieth century, against campaigns to enlarge the definition of citizenship. Miriam Cohen.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 370 - Seminar in Architectural History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 370 ) This seminar provides an in-depth overview and analysis of major projects, urban landscapes, and topics in Latin American architecture and urbanism in the twentieth century. Starting from the notion that “Latin America” is a modern construction, it examines buildings and landscapes produced in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. The courses consider key issues such as coloniality, race, gender, post-coloniality, imperialism, informality, and decoloniality. Students contribute to critical histories of modern architecture in Latin America by writing a research paper and producing a group podcast. Luisa Valle.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 372 - Design Workshop Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
In this intensive, a small group of students works with the faculty mentor to select and address a specific architectural or urban design challenge on campus, in the city of Poughkeepsie or in the wider region. The workshop works with partner groups on or off campus that are looking for support in tackling specific, more or less defined spatial planning and design questions. Partners can be existing constituencies such as student organizations, advocacy groups and non-profits, but also less organized groups that are brought together by particular spatial issues. In either case, the students help their partners articulate the scope of a feasible planning or design study, and they then develop a report over the course of the semester. Depending on the needs of the partner, the deliverables can range from immediately implementable design (for example new signage for a local non-profit) to drawings that render spatial issues visible and thereby negotiable, and that help partners advocate for or against spatial change. Tobias Armborst.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: INT -
URBS 375 - Architectural Design III
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 375 ) Visual Constructs. An examination of a number of visual constructs, analyzing the ways architects and urbanists have employed maps, models and projections to construct particular, partial views of the physical world. Using a series of mapping, drawing and diagramming exercises, students analyze these constructs and then appropriate, expand upon, or hybridize established visualization techniques. Tobias Armborst.
Two 2-hour periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
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URBS 387 - Representing American Cityscapes Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 387 ) From the visual and written descriptions of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire (today’s Mexico City), to Google Maps, this course explores representations of American cities from the colonial encounter to the present. Visual and written interpretations of urban landscapes have shaped the practice of planners, builders, artists, and activists in cities across the Americas. Introducing students to philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space as materially, socially, and symbolically produced, the course invites students to reflect critically on the role of representation in the meaning of built environments in North and Latin American cities.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
URBS 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research, under supervision of one of the participating instructors.
Course Format: OTH
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