Understanding History and Society

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the ways in which historical and national narratives are told by monumental and representational cultures of cities.
• How cosmopolitanism and diversity are expressed in urban environments.
• Cities as micro-sites of historical, social political and linguistic developments and conflicts that have national and/or transnational significance.
• How key notions such as ‘nation’, ‘class’, ‘race’, ‘gender’ ‘culture’, or ‘history’ are formed, represented and reproduced in a metropolitan context.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• apply knowledge, understanding and critical analysis to readings of the city
• formulate and clarify critical questions informed by theoretical approaches pertinent to the study of cities
• define present and exemplify concepts relating to the subject

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• produce academic writing to required conventions
• set and monitor goals reflecting on your own learning and learning form feedback
• work with a range of sources taking accurate notes and keeping records
• communicate effectively and confidently both orally and in writing

The module will introduce you to studying questions of history, society and culture through the prism of the city locally in order to be able to analyse cities at global level. The module will use the example of Southampton and other UK cities for the purposes of the research task and you will be able to apply the relevant theories and approaches to global cities such as Madrid, Paris and Berlin in the essay. The module explores cities as sites of national identity and conflict and of wider transnational and global links. Whilst the weekly lectures focus in the main on Southampton and UK cities, references will be made to cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Berlin and Mexico City and you will have the opportunity to explore those urban centres in more depth through the essay. We will examine linguistic practices, cultural products and sites through which cities are represented and through which issues of urban identity and politics are expressed (e.g. film, photography, monuments, architecture). In addition we will look at metropolitan cultures as subjects of cultural theory and read some key theoretical texts on issues such as the modern city, cities as sites of linguistic diversity, cosmopolitanism, urban cultures, the global city, space, segregation and inequality.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

Lectures introducing the key topics

Small group seminars to discuss primary sources and secondary readings

Individual essay tutorials

Learning activities include:

Close analysis of using and evaluating primary and secondary historical texts

Extensive reading of secondary and theoretical literature

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift (eds.) (2000). City a-z. Routledge.

Doreen Massey at al (eds.) (1999). City Worlds. Routledge.

Imogen Tyler (2020). Stigma The Machinery of inequality. London: ZED books.

Michael Peter Smith (2001). Transnational Urbanism Locating Globalization. Blackwell.

Deborah Stevenson (2003). Cities and Urban Cultures. Open Univ. Press.

Smakman, D and Heinrich, P editors (2018). Urban Sociolinguistics: The City as a linguistic process and experience. Routledge.

Suzanne Hall and Ricky Burdett editors (2018). The Sage Handbook of the 21st Century City. Sage.

Nadine El-Enany (2020). (B)ordering Britain. Law ,Race and Empire. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Fran Tonkiss (2006). Space, the City and Social Theory. Blackwell.

Anna Minton (2009). Ground Control Fear and Happiness in the twenty-first- century city. Penguin.

Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010). The Blackwell City Reader. Blackwell.

Diarmit Mac Giolla Chriost (2007). Language and the City. Palgrave.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External