A4459 Urban Fare: A Private Reading of Public Spaces
History/Theory SeminarLynne Breslin
Using an interdisciplinary approach, this seminar will explore New York and Tokyo. Urban theory and histories, along with novels, films and cultural critiques , will help situate the more personal experiences of the metropolis and the new global cities. In considering the formation of urban/geographical entities, its infrastructure and the underlying ideologies of these urban constructs, we will also attempt to uncover the mechanisms of the development of collective identities and individual reconciliations. Theoretical readings, consideration of traditional strategies for rendering the city such as histories, sociologies, geographies, economies, and politics will be juxtaposed to objectively subjective readings (novels, film, art).
Tokyo and New York have been chosen for their representation value: the most advanced of metropolis, the most universal/global cities and ironically the most particular of places. The seeming contradiction of universalizing technologies and romantically protected particularities is the basis of several industries from tourism to advertising to television that are engendered by these contradictions. Tokyo and (its nightmare Hiroshima)and New York and (the American edited contrasting ideal of Disney World) will be probed from many perspectives. The instrument for probing the urban fixations of New York and Tokyo will be specifically the memorial, the party (entertainment district) and the subway. Rather than focusing on the more traditional measures of the city's evolution: housing, government, parks, streets, we will study the repressed and the overtly symbolic. The party and the subway relate much about the desires bad fears of the society . Often the home to the homeless, this underworld services and serves as the support and excess (shopping and crime) of that society.
METHODOLOGY
The class will be conducted as a laboratory. Both the form and content of the seminar are critical. The reading list is substantial and part of each class will be spent in a close reading of one or several texts. Visits to museums, film showings are part of the requirements of this course. The ideas, forms and formulations studied will direct presentation and res earch. The varied backgrounds of the students in this seminar will be fully exploited. All reading is assigned in English and for that reason there are less representatives of the Japanese and documents in this course. In addition to written materials, we will also incorporate analysis of visual artifacts such as maps, advertisements, photographs and art.
REQUIREMENTS
Students will be given periodic assignments; for the second class students are asked to locate a map of Tokyo and a map of New York City and read, analyze and re-think the maps. Students will also keep a diary of sketches, artifacts, fragments of their semester in New York, emphasizing this personal experience of a public realm. Finally, each student will be responsible for a class presentation.
TOPICS
1. Tradition of urban wandering from Baudelaire to David Letterman
2. Mapping and Development of general theoretical framework of the city
3. From Edo to Tokyo: Forced feeding of modernity
4. New York, NY, the 1920 s and the investment in the future
5. New York: 1960 s-present
6. Tokyo: post-Pacific war
7. Counterpart: Hiroshima and the crisis of the technology
8. Counterparts: Disney World monument of a psychotic innocence
9. Subways: Shopping & Crime what do we value?
10. Monuments: Tourism of self-promotion
11. City of Gender
12. City of Gender: pleasure quarters, Love Hotels