Literature and the City

• Week 1: Reading the city
  What does it mean to live in the city? How do we experience the city through texts? How does the city bring together or exclude communities? What is the political potential of the urban space?
  • Henri Lefebvre, excerpts from The Right to the City
  • David Harvey, “The Right to the City”
  • Teju Cole, excerpts from Open City
• Week 2: Walking the city
  Walking the city has become analogous to the experience of urban modernity. This week we will explore what it means to be a flâneur and how it shapes the experience of the city. By studying texts from distinct time periods and genres, we will discuss the emergence and evolution of this simple yet powerful act.
  • Michel de Certeau, “Walking in the City”
  • Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”
  • Jessica Greenbaum, “I Love You More Than All the Windows in New York City”
  • Rebecca Solnit, excerpts from Wanderlust: A History of Walking
• Week 3: Reimagining the city
  How do we reconstitute a city in ruins? We’ll focus our conversations on how Istanbul is represented in the writings of the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. We’ll discuss the historical context in which Istanbul emerges as a site of loss, mourning and nostalgia. The transformation of the mundane into extraordinary will be a central theme that will allow us to gain a new perspective into the experience of every day.
  • Orhan Pamuk, excerpts from Istanbul: Memories of a City and The Museum of Innocence
  • Sait Faik, “A Useless Man”
  • Theophile Gautier, excerpts from Constantinople
• Week 4: The city and the self
  We’ll examine the reflection of the city on the individual’s inner life. The impact of the spaces we inhabit in shaping who we are will be the central focus of our discussions. As we look at different cities and experiences, we will explore the stronghold that the city has in the formation of our life experiences.
  • Jenny Erpenbeck, excerpts from Go, Went, Gone
  • Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That”
  • Richard Lehan, “The Inward Turn”
  • Georg Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life”
• Week 5: Movement and the city
  Having studied the state of inhabiting a city, this week we will discuss movement to and from the city. Through experiences of arrival, departure and anything in between, we will explore the hopes and disappointments that these journeys contain.
  • Teju Cole, excerpts from Every Day Is for the Thief
  • Edwidge Danticat, “Without Inspection”
  • Hisham Matar, excerpts from A Month in Siena
• Week 6: The future of the city
  What does the future hold for the city? How will our cities evolve? What kinds of lives will be included into the borders of the city? Our last meeting will be dedicated to discussions that address these questions and more. We will study the intricate ways in which the politics of the city are entangled with questions of power, authority and identity.
  • Imre Azem, Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits
  • Jamaica Kincaid, excerpt from A Small Place
  • David Harvey, excerpts from Rebel Cities

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Analyze how literary texts represent urban life and experience
• Identify critical terminology and themes related to alienation, urban life, modernity, class, race and belonging
• Explain literary theories and their connection to urban studies
• Compare the representation of different cities across distinct geographies and time periods
• Outline the conditions surrounding emergence of the modern city

• Lectures
• Participation in discussions
  
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

No textbook is required. We will provide all course materials online.