Urban Studies Program

Director: Leonard Nevarez (2026/27); Brian Godfrey (2025/26);

Steering Committee: Stephane Andrade^a (Sociology), Tobias Armborst^a (Art), Pinar Batur (Sociology), John Elrick (Geography), Maria Hantzopoulos (Education), Timothy Koechlin (International Studies), Osman Nemli (Philosophy), Leonard Nevarez (Sociology), Samson Okoth Opondo (Political Science), Jonah Rowen (Art/Urban Studies), Erica Stein (Film);

Participating Faculty: Nancy Bisaha (History), Susan Blickstein (Geography), Heesok Chang (English), Mita Choudhury (History), Mary Ann Cunningham (Geography), Eve D’Ambra (Art), Yvonne Elet (Art), Amitava Kumar (English), Candice M. Lowe Swift (Anthropology), Erin McCloskey^ab (Education), Molly S. McGlennen (English), Lydia Murdoch (History), Molly Nesbit^a (Art), Barbara A. Olsen (Greek and Roman Studies), Hiram Perez (English), Sidney Plotkin (Political Science), Ismail O. D. Rashid (History), Louis Römer (Anthropology), Tyrone Simpson II (English), Yu Zhou (Geography).

^a On leave 2026/27, first semester

^b On leave 2026/27, second semester

^ab On leave 2026/27

After declaration of the major or correlate sequence, no NRO work will be permissible or applicable to the major.

Programs

• Urban Studies Major

• Urban Studies Correlate Sequence

Courses

• URBS 100 - Introduction to Urban Studies
• URBS 144 - Living in the Ancient City
• URBS 177 - Special Topics

• URBS 200 - Urban Theory
• URBS 202 - Public Policy and Human Environments
• URBS 204 - Rural Sociology
• URBS 211 - Rome: The Art of Empire
• URBS 223 - Cinemas and Urbanisms
• URBS 225 - Renaissance Italy
• URBS 227 - Chinatowns
• URBS 229 - Paris and London: Society and Culture in the Early Modern City, 1500-1800
• URBS 230 - Making Cities
• URBS 232 - Pathways for Sustainability
• URBS 234 - Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Crisis, Politics, and Culture in a Modern City
• URBS 236 - Planning History and Thought
• URBS 237 - Urban Sociology
• URBS 240 - Global History of Modern Architecture and Urbanism
• URBS 245 - The Ethnographer’s Craft
• URBS 248 - Housing Crises and Activism
• URBS 250 - Urban Geography: Space, Place, Environment
• URBS 252 - Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World
• URBS 254 - Victorian Britain
• URBS 255 - Race, Representation, and Resistance in U.S. Schools
• URBS 256 - Bilingualism and/in K-12 Public Education
• URBS 257 - Genre and the Postcolonial City
• URBS 258 - Sustainable Landscapes: Bridging Place and Environment in Poughkeepsie
• URBS 264 - The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes
• URBS 265 - Modern Art and the Mass Media: the New Public Sphere
• URBS 268 - After 1968: Sustainable Aesthetics
• URBS 272 - Topics in Architectural History
• URBS 273 - A Mirror Image: The Search for Self, Place & Home in Contemporary Architecture in the World, 1980s+
• URBS 274 - Buildings and Cities in Early Modern Italy
• URBS 275 - Architectural Design 1
• URBS 276 - Architectural Design II
• URBS 278 - American Landscapes: History, Politics, & Built Environments
• URBS 290 - Community-Engaged Learning
• URBS 298 - Independent Work

• URBS 301 - Senior Thesis
• URBS 303 - Senior Seminar: Advanced Debates in Urban Studies
• URBS 305 - Sculpture II: Space and Place
• URBS 314 - Seminar in Ancient Art
• URBS 316 - Constantinople/Istanbul: 1453
• URBS 322 - The Metabolic City: Resources, Flows and Networks
• URBS 326 - Machiavelli and his Contemporaries
• URBS 344 - Living for the City: Race, Space, and Place in Urban American
• URBS 352 - The City in Fragments
• URBS 356 - Environment and Land-Use Planning
• URBS 360 - Reckoning with Urban Renewal, Gentrification, and Displacement
• URBS 364 - Seminar in Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art
• URBS 367 - Urban Education Reform
• URBS 370 - Seminar in Architectural History
• URBS 372 - Design Workshop
• URBS 374 - Urban Ethnography
• URBS 375 - Architectural Design III
• URBS 383 - Indigenous New York
• URBS 399 - Senior Independent Work