ENGL 177 - Special Topics

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
0.5 unit(s)

(Same as AMST 177 and URBS 177) Topic for 2017/18 a & b: Imagining the City. This six-week course surveys various approaches to thinking and writing about the city. How do our surroundings change us? What power does an individual have to reshape or reimagine the vast urban landscape? We consider a diverse array of depictions: the ethnic underground of Chang-rae Lee’s Queens; the forlorn Baltimore depicted in the television show The Wire; the midnight wanderings of Teju Cole and Junot Diaz; the global bustle of Jessica Hagedorn’s Manila; present-day graffiti artists and urban farmers reclaiming their “right to the city.” Hua Hsu.

First six-week course.

Two 75-minute periods.