Each year the H+U+D initiative sponsors (1) an undergraduate Gateway Course that introduces the multidisciplinary study of cities, (2) two undergraduate City Seminars, one devoted to a North American city and the other to a city overseas, which examine the city in a detailed, multidisciplinary way, (3) a mixed undergraduate/graduate Anchor Institution Seminar, which examines the activities of one of the Philadelphia institutions that reflects and serves the city’s diverse population, and (4) a graduate Problematics Seminar, co-taught by Design and SAS humanities faculty, on a topic that grows out of the collaborative work of the H+U+D Colloquium.

ENG 211: Paris Modern—Spiral City

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Spring 2016

H+U+D CITY SEMINAR

Description:

The course focuses on Paris and the idea of “the future in the past.” By this we are interested in the recursive temporality of design, and its hidden laws. In this sense, Paris is the quintessentially modernist city precisely because of the constant abutment or overlapping of the past with the present—Le Louvre’s Pyramid, the Villes Nouvelle of planned suburbs such as Les Espaces d’Abraxas with its merger of science fiction with neoclassicist traits. Walter Benjamin wrote his in his Arcades Project book that “Each generation experiences the fashions of the one immediately preceding it as the most radical anti- aphrodisiac imaginable.” However, a present generation may end up embracing the styles of grandparent’s or earlier forebears. The course looks at Paris in terms of the dialectic between future and present, in that order.

Instructors:

Jean-Michel Rabaté, English, and Ken Lum, Fine Art

Day/Time:

Wednesday, 9:00 am- 12:00 pm

HSPV 638 / MUS 621: Cities and Sound—The Spatial Politics and Practices of Sound in Modern Urban Life

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Spring 2016

H+U+D PROBLEMATICS SEMINAR

Description:

This seminar will examine the role of sound in shaping modern urban spaces and life. While music plays a large part in the sounds of the city, we will focus on soundscapes more broadly. From the late 19th century through the present, and in geographies spanning from Paris to Philadelphia, we will explore the making, meaning, and experience of sound for varied populations; the politics of sound as an instrument of power; and the policies of noise regulation. As an interdisciplinary seminar supported by the Mellon Humanities+Urbanism+Design Initiative, the course will bring together students and faculty from diverse fields to probe the subject of urban sound through the lenses of both theory and practice. We will read across a wide variety of disciplines, including urban and environmental history, sound studies, urban geography, the history of sensation, musicology, anthropology, and critical theory. We will engage with sound archives, installations, films, and photographs, and also have an opportunity to make field recordings of our own. The format of the final project is flexible and could include a research paper, theoretical essay, visualizations, GIS mapping, sonic compositions, short film, or other types of media.

Instructors:

Naomi Waltham-Smith, Music, and Francesca Ammon, City and Regional Planning/Historic Preservation