MA Sociology (Urban Studies)

Contemporary sociological thinking emerges from a rich and complex history of attempts to understand the patterns and dynamics of social life. This module will invite students to consider particular moments and relations within this history as an introduction to the sociological imagination today. We will consider key trajectories to show how current debates both continue and challenge lines of thought that have engaged sociologists. We will see how core theoretical questions of social reproduction, inequalities, subjectivity, truth, knowledge and belief systems and more have remained within the scope of sociology’s explorations while new developments have created the richness of themes and approaches that now live under the umbrella of the discipline. Thinking Sociologically will enable students to study core themes of sociology in-depth at an advanced level and encourage them to develop their faculties for thinking critically and sociologically. They will learn through close reading and discussion of key writings, and written assessment involving close textual analysis. The module will be team-taught, with lecturers taking two weeks each to discuss particular sociological themes as represented in a classical and a related contemporary text. The texts will be treated in-depth in seminar discussion and assessed by detailed comparison in written work.

Methodology Now will address ‘sociology-in-the-making’, examining epistemological claims, methodological processes and inventive qualitative research methods. The module aims to activate the sociological imagination so that students can critically evaluate current debates about sociological methodology. Students will study how sociological methodology is being transformed in the age of visual, digital and other technologies, as well discuss the extent to which live or inventive forms of empirical research challenge other modes of social and cultural analysis. Through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops, students will encounter key moments in sociological research, beginning with the formulation of problems, the idea of relevance and ethics. The course will be team-taught, with a weekly lecture, seminar and workshop which will be focused on short exercises of qualitative methods in action. Students will be assessed through a portfolio of summative assessments which are built up over ten weeks, culminating in the final assessment which will comprise of a research proposal. The modular nature of the assessment is intended to give more opportunity for non-traditional styles of learning.

This is a core course for both the MA Urban Studies pathway and the Photography and Urban Cultures (PUC) programme. Both programmes form part of the Goldsmiths Sociology portfolio of MAs hosted by the Centre for Urban and Community Research [CUCR]. CUCR provides an intellectual context for urban scholarship at Goldsmiths and beyond. CUCR also provides a wider programme of activities such as regular urban walks.

This course addresses significant issues in the contemporary organisation of urban landscape, connections between cities as well as the interface between human, architectural and planning fabrics. Drawing on specific empirical examples this course examines key debates in urban sociology. There is a strong focus on visual apprehension of cities and ways of accessing and researching cities through photography. Urban environments are navigated and understood visually, they are turned into photographs, video and film. This course probes the possibilities of visual knowledge in unravelling urban landscape and its built and human fabric.

In every century over the last millennium, Cities have been a crucial node within the networks of commerce and cultural exchange that spanned the world. In the 21st century, Cities remain a site of intense activity, sat atop innumerable junctions of capital, migration, culture and commodities. As such Cities such as London present the ideal focal point for developing an understanding of the pressing questions facing cities today and into the future. However, while it is important to understand the long history of, for example, London’s place within global networks of exchange and power, it is also impossible to ignore the extent to which, in recent years, forces that shape the contemporary city are visibly shifting. That is, the roads that meet at the city’s junction are arriving from new destinations, carrying new opportunities and risks for the. Accordingly, this course seeks to understand how cities such as London are being re-made amidst the re-wiring of global circuitry.

Focusing on specific examples – drawn from the Centre for Urban and Community Research’s activity across London and beyond – the module illuminates the impact of new technologies, markets, mutations in governing ideologies, novel patterns of mobility and new technologies of surveillance on the city and its inhabitants. Beyond understanding how these developments impact on the city, the module aims to develop an understanding of cities such as London through its relatedness to other urban locations, situating London’s connectedness to elsewhere as integral to the ways in which the city is being re-made. As much as this is a module about rethinking the city, it is also about rethinking cities around the world, each increasingly interconnected with the rest, but with its own particularities bequeathed by ecology, culture and history.

The dissertation is a substantial piece of written work. It is intended to assess the full range of students’ abilities and to apply the full range of learning outcomes which the programme enables students to develop. In particular, it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

Students on the MA Sociology and Urban and Cultural Analysis pathways will be expected to submit a written dissertation of 12-15,000 words. Students on the Visual Sociology pathway will complete a project which combines a practice element or product with a methodological and theoretical reflection (5-6,000 words) as part of the project. As a guideline, a project should show substantial engagement with media and materials, for example, it might consist of 20 mins of video, a series of 20-30 photographs or drawings or an installation combining any number of objects and texts.