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Home > SMLLC home > ML1204 Tales of the City: Introduction to Thematic Analysis
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ML1204 Tales of the City: Introduction to Thematic Analysis

Term 1 only

Convenor:  Dr Jon Hughes

Tutors: Dr Jon Hughes and Dr James Kent

Assessment:

Formative assignment: Essay plan (0%)

Essay 1: 30%, 1,200-1,500 words; Essay 2: 60%, 1,500-2,000 words.

Online (Moodle) Test: 10%

Overview

Society and culture in the last century have been decisively shaped by the city and by the experience of the urban. By examining this fascinating location, its geography and topography, its traffic and networks, its development, changes and expansions, its practical and symbolic functions, we begin to ask larger questions about modernity and culture in general. This course introduces students to this topic through a range of literary texts, films and photographs and theoretical texts responding to aspects of the city. Perspectives on cities including Berlin, Paris, New York and Havana will be examined comparatively. Participants will develop skills of comparison and analysis, and reflect on important questions relating to space and identity, public and private spheres, migration, postcolonialism, and alterity.

Key Primary Bibliography and Filmography:

Set texts:

Literary texts will include:

Irmgard Keun, The Artificial Silk Girl (1931), trans. Katharina von Ankum (Other Press, 2011; extract provided on Moodle)

John Cheever, ‘O City of Broken Dreams’ (1948) [short story, provided on Moodle]

Non-fiction texts (photography) will include:

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890) [available on-line]

Brassaï, Paris by Night  (1933) [extracts provided on Moodle]

Set films will include:

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, dir. Walter Ruttmann (1927)

Secondary Literature: General, Theoretical, Introductory

You do not need to read all of these texts, though your lecturers may refer to some of the names here, and dipping into some of them will help you think about some of the questions raised in the course and to research your essay questions. Further, more specialised bibliographies will be made available to you to support the three blocks.

Barber, Stephen, Projected Cities: Cinema and Urban Space (London: Reaktion, 2002)

Caws, Mary Ann ed., City Images: Perspectives from Literature, Philosophy and Film (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1991)

Clarke, David B. ed, The Cinematic City (London: Routledge, 1997)

Mennel, Barbara, Cities and Cinema (London: Routledge, 2008)

Shiel, Mark and Tony Fitzmaurice eds, Screening the City (London: Verso, 2003)

Simpson-Housley, Paul and Peter Preston, Writing the City: Eden, Babylon and the New Jerusalem (London: Routledge, 1994)

Timms, Edward and David Kelley, Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature and Art, ed (University of Manchester Press, 1985

 

  
 
 
 
 

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