This course addresses significant issues in the contemporary organisation of urban landscapes, urban life and connections between cities as well as the interface between human and architectural fabric. Drawing on specific empirical examples in based in China, Hong Kong, the US, London and parts of mainland Europe this course examines key debates in urban sociology and research. There is a strong focus on visual apprehension of cities and ways of accessing and researching cities through photography.   The following sessions have been offered in previous years: 

• A tour of 'urban theory' from the Chicago School to the present day. This sets up the conceptual basis for the session following which, although empirically focused on specific cities, illuminate different conceptual frameworks for understanding urbanism.
• Whose City? This examines debates concerned with the social production of space and rights to the city. An examination of ghetto urbanism in the US through Wacquant, Bourdieu, Bourgeois and the research through which this kind of urban knowledge is generated.
• Pastness and Urban Landscape. This examines discrepant and linear notions of time/interpretations of pastness, collective memory, and how pasts are inscribed within urban landscapes. We will draw mainly on visually-led investigation of Hong Kong and London to explore these themes.
• Post-Colonial Cities. This session examines the intersections between globalisation and colonialism in Hong Kong and in the lives of ‘skilled’ migrants from the global North. It makes extensive use of photographic narratives of Hong Kong as an iconic city landscape and the use of environmental portraiture to capture migrants’ relationships to the city.
• Globalisation, Migration and Urban Life. Drawing on visual empirical research on mosques and African churches in London this session examines the impact of recent and current migration on commerce, religion and city landscape. It sets this in broader debates about globalisation and cities developed from the previous session.
• Material Cultures and Multiple Globalisations. This session draws on some of the more ordinary trajectories of commodities and collaborations composing the global world through small trade between China/Hong Kong and Africa, and Europe and Africa. 
• Mega-Cities and Non-City Zones. This session is set in China. It examines architecture, the generic city, land speculation and the dynamics between mega-cities and economic and technical development zones through some of the lives that are lived in them.
• Urban Regeneration. This session examines the politics, debates, conceptualisation and social divisions generated and sustained in urban renewal projects. Who benefits from these projects? How do they reconstruct cities? We will draw specifically on Olympic-related redevelopments in Athens, London, and Beijing.
• Architectural and Planning Politics. This session examines ways in which political and military decisions are embedded in architecture and planning. It draws on Weizman’s Hollow Land and asks questions about whether this involves a radical re-conceptualisation of space.
• Mobilities. This session is concerned with movement and routes as well as the infrastructure and technologies of mobility such as bridges, roads, airports, stations, tunnels, trains, motor transport, and shipping. It asks critical questions about whether these approaches to space generate information about social morphology or social life more generally.

Assessment: 5-6,000 word essay

* PLEASE NOTE THAT PART A IS OPEN TO ALL MA STUDENTS BUT PART B IS ONLY OPEN TO SOCIOLOGY STUDENTS

This course is taken as a full unit (Autumn and Spring terms) by MA Photography and Urban Cultures students. It may be taken as two half unit options in the Autumn and Spring terms by MA students in the Sociology department; the Autumn term course is a prerequisite for the Spring term course, but may be taken as a single course. The first term focuses on debates around ‘critiques of the real’, globalisation and the city, and the visual representation of place and space.  The second term focuses on urban identities, culture and the construction of self through portraiture and the family album.

This course aims to introduce students to contemporary examples of photographic practice and the representation of city life.  Much has been written about the way the photographic lens operates to survey and govern the definition of what is ‘real’. This course will evaluate these perspectives critically. Does the lens only look one-way?  This raises the question posed most eloquently by John Berger, namely, when a photograph is taken “who is looking at who?” 

This course offers students a range of critical perspectives on photographic practice from within sociology, geography, anthropology, cultural studies and visual arts theory.  It also includes discussions of the work of contemporary media practitioners and photographic artists and examines key issues in relation to visual ethnography, the place of photography in news media and fine art practice.  Participants will be introduced to a number of theoretical and practical approaches relating to urban photography, and encouraged to develop a visual ethnography about an aspect of urban culture or space.  The course is of particular relevance to students wishing to use photography within a research context.

You will be expected to complete the set reading assignments each week and to participate in class discussions.

Assessment: 1x 5-6,000 word essay (or 3-4,000 word essay with 10x image photo-project) for each term.

Course convenor: Paul Halliday

The Dissertation can comprise two parts: a portfolio and a 6-8,000-word dissertation. Alternatively, you may submit a 12-15,000-word written Dissertation. The Dissertation will consist of: an account of the rationale of the photographic project; a critical evaluation of photographic practice and issues of reflectivity and knowledge production. In combination with the written part you will be expected to provide evidence of a sustained and coherent body of photographic work focusing on an aspect of urban culture for assessment. Previously, work from Final Visual Projects has been shown on a virtual gallery space linked to the CUCR website.

The programme offers a comprehensive range of practice workshops and related seminars covering analogue and digital photographic practice, introduction to medium-format practice, location lighting, sound recording, portfolio development, landscape photography, portraiture, street photography, and a number of urban field-walks associated with the CUCR.

There is a weekly Talking Practice (normally held Thursday morning) seminar where students are encouraged to give a presentation about
their work for group feedback and informal assessment. In the third term, you focus on the development and realisation of the dissertation,
incorporating your Final Visual Project and written component, and this is supported by a number of related seminars, workshops and tutorials.