Anthropology 216 - Topic: Urban Natures

'How does the city figure into struggles over who we are and who we want to be? Pinnacle of civilization and cultural vibrancy, or zone of social decadence and future catastrophe? Thinking through enduring myths of idyllic pasts and imagined futures, this course explores figures of the urban as a matter of changing economic and ecological relations. Arguments about the production of nature under urbanization will be drawn from ethnographic research as well as urban history, political ecology, science studies, and other approaches. We examine, in sum, how societies have built cities and, reflexively, how cities have shaped societies.'

Prereq: Anthropology 105 or permission of instructor