Urban Pasts and Futures - SOC00069I

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Module summary

During this module, you will learn about the ideas of key urban sociologists and gain an insight into the major urban transformations of the twentieth century, such as industrialisation, urban renewal, ghettoisation and gentrification. We link these transformations to the reproduction of social class, race and gender inequalities but also consider how these may be overcome.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

How are cities and urbanisation crucial to understanding modern, diverse societies? In this module we aim for you to urban sociology, to develop a critical understanding of how urbanisation is viewed as central to current policy goals of improving economic development in the Global South. In addition to learning about the ideas of key urban sociologists, you will gain an insight into the major urban transformations of the twentieth century, such as industrialisation, urban renewal, ghettoisation and gentrification. We link these transformations to the reproduction of social class, race and gender inequalities but also consider how these may be overcome. The module encourages you to think and act as urban citizens, not simply as individuals with rights but as agents capable of initiating change in the environments that we live in.

Module learning outcomes

Diagnose social harms in urban environments and suggest alternatives, improvements and remedies

Use visual methods as an aid to critically analyse features of urban life such as buildings, monuments, architecture as they relate to core module themes

Evaluate historical legacies of race, imperial, gender and class inequalities in the city

Identify mechanisms of exclusion in cities, and communicate and practise more socially just ways of conceiving urban futures

Demonstrate creative engagements with contemporary urban life and possible future changes

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	70
Essay/coursework	30

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	70
Essay/coursework	30

Module feedback

For formative work - Presentation - students will receive written or verbal feedback on how to improve their skills in areas that will contribute towards their summative assessment. The formative assessments provide practice for the summative task, and in line with MLO 2.

For summative work - Urban Futures Video and VisualEssay - students will receive an overall mark and grading according to clearly defined criteria for assessing their knowledge, skills and abilities in line with MLO 1-5. They will also receive written feedback showing areas in which they have done well, and those areas in which they need to improve that will contribute to their progress.

Indicative reading

Hunt, T. (2005) Building Jerusalem: the rise and fall of the Victorian city. London: Phoenix.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.

Russell, D. (2004) Looking North: Northern England and the national imagination. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Williams, R. (2004) The anxious city: English urbanism in the late twentieth century. London: Routledge.