The City through the Body: course syllabus
The cultural theorist Siegfried Kracauer claimed, “one’s body takes root in the asphalt.” This course begins with that claim to explore sensuous encounters in and with the city. Particular smells, sounds, visions, textures and tastes mark cities as sensory environments that cultivate hedonism, pleasure and desire. How do bodies and senses order space and configure experience? How do we ‘make sense’ in and through urban environments? If we take cities as sensory sites, what are some research strategies we can use to explore the relationship between bodies and cities? The course provides a framework for exploration of various understandings of cities, bodies, experience, and the senses as presented and expressed in social theory, art, film, music, and literature. Using a transdisciplinary perspective, students are encouraged to experiment with creative approaches to understanding embodied urban experience.
Other courses taught:
Inequality and Social Class
Modern Social Theory
Urban Studies
Sociology of Gender
Sociology of Popular Culture
Survey of Sociology and Anthropology
Social Problems
Global Issues in Design and Visuality in the 21st Century
