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| Semester | fall semester 2020 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Aylin Brigitte Yildirim Tschoepe (aylin.tschoepe@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Cities are engendered - produced and provoked - through the interaction of various contesting actors. These negotiate and continuously change culturally constructed hierarchies that determine the distribution of roles in a community and in urban space, and the forms of power and exclusion that operate within it. There is an urgency to think about and create knowledge of invisible and routine, persisting and emergent discriminatory practices in urban space. With a focus on current debates, we will discuss texts that engage with interdisciplinary questions of Gender, Body, Space, Architecture, Landscape, and Geography. Students relate readings to events of their interest, discuss and workshop together toward the final assignment, a visual essay. Gender is a central domain of social and political life. It is a category of experiencing space and performing identity. At the same time, it is a label for bodies, infrastructural and architectural spaces (aesthetically and programmatically) that influences normative and nonconformist everyday practices. Urban space is, in many ways, the physical manifestation of power dynamics into the built environment. It is a lens through which to analyze who has access to public space and commons, to transportation, spaces of leisure, safe neighborhoods, and clean air and water. The city is both a stage for the (dis)play of power structures and gendered dynamics, as well as an actor who distributes resources and enables or disables access. Emancipatory practices are manifold and creative. They reach their peak in visibility and voice when taken to urban space, into the streets. The current political climate has in many ways heightened the nature of public space as a contested sphere along the lines of contemporary urban gender issues. Questioning categories of gender and sexuality is the first step in deconstructing the spatial and political regimes which manifest these categories. Second, we will unveil how uneven power structures and intersectionality (gender, race, class) play out in architecture, landscape and urban space. Third, we will construct narratives of gender and space through our visual essays. This will help us grapple with the fluent, porous and contested nature not just of gender as a category, but also cities and bodies, which undergo constant redefinition and negotiation. This course has a theoretical, an inquiry-based and a methodological component. It is intended to bring together students together through an interdisciplinary approach to complex, intersectional issues, and to constitute a platform for exchange and critical reflection. We will take tours in the urban to explore various narratives that engender the city. Students will be introduced to collective fieldwork methods through a “fieldwork kit”. Explorations include spatial and participant observation, mapping, creative writing exercises, visual communication. We will critically consider the interaction of ethnographic content and visual form in multimodal projects (Course materials will be provided). This will be useful toward the final visual essay. We will explore this genre as an alternative to text-only formats, and a way to craft new narratives in the context of visual material. Hereby, we will critically consider images beyond their illustrating, documenting capacity, and grapple with their potential and role as actors that shape and craft narratives, form relations within and inbetween them and other elements of the visual essay. We will revisit forms of story-telling and explore creative writing techniques. _______________________________________ «Diese Lehrveranstaltung wird von «IMPULS - Facilitatinq Service Learning for Sustainability» unterstützt. IMPULS fördert Dozierende und Studierende, im Rahmen von Lehrveranstaltungen Projekte mit Bezug zu den Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) umzusetzen. Mit der Förderung durch IMPULS sollen Studierende zu Change Agents für Nachhaltigkeit ausgebildet und dazu inspiriert und befähigt werden, diese Kompetenzen auch im späteren Berufsleben und im Privaten für eine Nachhaltige(re) Entwicklung einzusetzen. Die Förderung beinhaltet neben finanzieller Unterstützung unter anderem auch Mentoring für die Umsetzung der Studierendenprojekte und einen SDG-Workshop. Mehr Infos gibt es auf der Webseite: www.unibas.ch/impuls» |
| Learning objectives | - an understanding of interdisciplinary approaches between Urban Studies and Gender Studies - skills in fieldwork methods and visual communication through short research assignments and the final project (visual essay) - explore techniques of story-telling and creative writing - the ability to use these skills in the development of independent research projects. - explore the relationship between content and visual form and the inclusion of images as a way to communicate research (to a wider audience) |
| Bibliography | In the different seminar meetings, we will discuss concepts such as "sexist cities," "body-cities," "queer cities," "flaneuse cities," and "spectacle cities." The course readings will be texts from the following authors (among others): Marion Roberts, Dolores Hayden, Denise Scott Brown, Linda McDowell, bell hooks, Elizabeth Grosz, Chris Reed, Jack Halberstam, Lauren Elkin, Deborah Parsons, Elizabeth Wilson, Susana Torre, Beatriz Colomina. |
| Comments | This course is based on critical discussions of texts, inquiry based approaches of daily (design) practice, and methodological explorations; readings and methods do not require previous knowledge, but it is certainly useful. Students prepare work toward the visual essay and develop their individual skill levels and pace. |
| Admission requirements | This course is geared towards MA in Critical Urbanisms students and Gender Studies students, but open to all. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Vertiefung Themenfelder der Geschlechterforschung (Master's degree subject: Gender Studies) Module: Projects and Processes of Urbanization (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms (Start of studies before 01.08.2020)) Module: The Urban across Disciplines (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Urban Studies |