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58595-01 - Course: The City as Archive (3 CP)
| Semester | fall semester 2025 |
| Course frequency | Every fall sem. |
| Lecturers | Ernest Sewordor (ernest.sewordor@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This course explores conceptual, political, and practical questions about archives, using the city (of Basel) as a lens for urban research. From the premise that archives are repositories of selected material records containing public/private memories and sources of “objective” knowledge, this course rethinks, revises, and expands how archives are defined. Building on that, we will engage alternative archives (e.g., ephemeral traces, oral history, and sound records) curated by activists and civil society next to formal holdings managed by governmental institutions. We will aim to imagine the possibilities of finding evidence for research beyond existing archival repositories by scrutinising (un)built spaces as historically formed deposits of sources for conducting urban research. This course encourages students to approach urban research partly as a collaborative archival intervention for transformation that engages advocacy groups and marginalised (peoples’) conditions. |
| Learning objectives | At the end of this seminar, participants will gain: (a) practical skills in designing strategies to conduct archival work for urban studies research; (b) an ability to select and curate relevant records for reconstructing urban pasts or presents, and imagining urban futures; (c) a critical understanding of the relationship between the archive and (un)built environment; (d) competence to examine the limits of knowledge produced with sources from formal/institutional repositories and creatively expand their repertoire of archival sources for researching the urban. |
| Bibliography | Mbembe, Achille. “The Power of the Archive and its Limits.” In Carolyn Hamilton et al (eds), Refiguring the Archive (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, 2002): 50-75. Stoler, Anne. “Introduction.” In Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton University Press, 2009): 1-75. Azoulay, Ariella. Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (London: Verso, 2019) Zeitlyn, David. “Anthropology in and of the Archives: Possible Futures and Contingent Pasts. Archives as Anthropological Surrogates.” Annual Review of Anthropology (2012) 41: 461–80. Ann Laura Stoler. “Colonial Archives and Arts of Governance.” Archival Science 2 (2002): 87–109. Rao, Vyjayanthi. “City as Archive: Contemporary Urban Transformations and the Possibility of Politics.” In International Association for Educating Cities (eds), Education and Urban Life: 20 Years of Educating Cities (2009): 179-186. Burgum, Samuel. “This City Is an Archive: Squatting History and Urban Authority.” Journal of Urban History 48(3) (2022): 504–522. Bertschi, Denise. “Gaping Absences: Where is Helvécia?” In Denise Bertschi, et al (eds), Unearthing Traces: Dismantling Imperialist Entanglements of Archives, Landscape, and the Built Environment (Lausanne: EPFL Press, 2023): 141-63. Lüthi, Barabara, Falk, Francesca, and Purtschert, Patricia. “Colonialism Without Colonies: Examining Blank Spaces in Colonial Studies.” National Identities 18(1) (2016): 1–9. Purtschert, Patricia, and Fischer-Tiné, Harald (eds). Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Schär, Bernard. ”Switzerland, Borneo and the Dutch Indies: Towards a New Imperial History of Europe, c .1770–1850.” Past & Present 257(1) (2022): 134–167. Michel, N. “Sheepology: The Postcolonial Politics of Raceless Racism in Switzerland.” Postcolonial Studies 18(4) (2015): 410–426. Schilliger, S. “Challenging Who Counts as a Citizen: The Infrastructure of Solidarity Contesting Racial Profiling in Switzerland.” Citizenship Studies 24(4) (2020): 530–547. Callaci, Emily. “Introduction.” In Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania (Duke University Press, 2017): 1-17. Quayon, Ato. “Signs of the Times: Discourse Ecologies and Street Life on Oxford Street, Accra.” City & Society 22(1) (2010): 72-96. |
| Comments | The course is open to Master students from other programs with a priority for MA Students in Critical Urbanisms and in Changing Societies on timely registration. |
| Admission requirements | Anmelden: Belegen ; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 10.15-12.00 | Rosshofgasse (Schnitz), Seminarraum S 02 |
Dates
| Modules |
Modul: Areas: Afrika (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Epochen der europäischen Geschichte: Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Materialitäten (Master's degree program: Cultural Techniques) Modul: Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master's degree subject: History) Modul: Praktiken (Master's degree program: Cultural Techniques) Modul: Research Lab Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Modul: Vertiefung Themenfelder der Geschlechterforschung (Master's degree subject: Gender Studies) Module: Fields: Environment and Development (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Research Skills (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Ways of Knowing the City (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Pass/Fail |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Urban Studies |