Spring 2016

Spring 2016
Havana: Architecture, Literature, and the Arts
Subject associations
ART 466 / SPA 466 / ARC 466 / URB 466
This seminar will study the urban setting of Havana in its articulation with literature, film, and the arts from the early twentieth century to the present day. It will explore cross-disciplinary continuities, the engagement with multiple pasts, the city as a meeting place for all the arts and crucible of social identities. There will be a mandatory trip to Havana during Spring break.
Instructors
Esther Roseli da Costa Azevedo Meyer
Michael George Wood
Spring 2016
Latino Global Cities
Subject associations
SPA 327 / URB 327 / LAO 327
This seminar focuses on the comparative study of Latino urban cultures in U.S., Caribbean and Spanish cities (mainly New York City, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Madrid). Topics include the 2008 Financial Crisis, Occupy-like movements, global migratory flows, popular culture, memory, debt, visuality and citizenship. Paying close attention to their political and cultural contexts, flamenco, hip-hop, graffiti, visual culture, poetry, documentary films and political performances will be analyzed. Guest speakers and musicians will be part of the conversation.
Instructors
Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones
Germán Labrador Méndez
Spring 2016
Mapping Gentrification
Subject associations
URB 385 / SOC 385 / HUM 385 / ARC 385
This seminar introduces the study of gentrification, with a focus on mapping projects using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software. Readings, films, and site visits will situate the topic, as the course examines how racial landscapes of gentrification, culture and politics have been influenced by and helped drive urban change. Tutorials in ArcGIS will allow students to convert observations of urban life into fresh data and work with existing datasets. Learn to read maps critically, undertake multifaceted spatial analysis, and master new cartographic practices associated with emerging scholarship in the Digital and Urban Humanities.
Instructors
Aaron Peter Shkuda
Spring 2016
Topics in the Formal Analysis of the Urban Structure: Environmental Challenges of Urban Sprawl
Subject associations
ARC 492 / URB 492 / ENV 492
As part of the search for solutions to climate, water and energy challenges in a rapidly urbanizing world, it is crucial to understand and reassess the role of exurban sprawl in the environment. This interdisciplinary course aims to add theoretical, pragmatic and cultural dimensions to scientific, technological, and policy aspects of current environmental challenges, in an effort to bridge the environmental sciences, urbanism and the humanities
Instructors
Mario Isaac Gandelsonas