Liberal Arts Courses

Urban Ethnography

Course No. SSQR 371  Credits: 3.0

According to the UN, today over half the world’s population lives in urban areas. This class will examine urbanism as a concept through the lens of anthropology. We will begin with a grounding in the theoretical writings on urban anthropology to give us context, and examine the origins of cities and urbanism in human prehistory. From there we will read several ethnographies, or anthropological case studies on urbanism and culture, focusing on both non-western and American cities and urban locations. In doing so we will also examine the intersection or poverty, race, gender, and globalization as they are affected by urban development. We will also consider how these issues are related to us in our own urban ‘spaces’ in the greater Cleveland area. 3 credits.