The American City
USSC6917
This unit explores the concept, ideal and experience of the city in the United States. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this course seeks to engage a variety of discourses in its exploration of the question of the city as both an imaginary and a material construct. The particularity of the American city will be examined by considering how it is lived in terms of built form, urban life and sustainability and how it is conceived in and through its representation in literature, cinema, the visual arts, critical and cultural theory, urban studies and popular culture. From a study of sources as diverse as the changing and conflicted fictional cityscapes of Edith Wharton, Dos Passos and DeLillo; the cartoons of Frank Miller; the films of Martin Scorcese; as well as, reflecting upon and rethinking the notion of the `wounded' or `traumatised' (post-crisis) cities of NYC, Detroit and New Orleans; addressing the crucial issue of sustainability and the future of the city; and exploring the significance of contemporary urban phenomena, the American city will be discovered to be a unique, dynamic, paradoxical and profoundly influential site of human interaction and engagement.
Unit of study details
Unit of study level: Postgraduate
Credit points: 6
Commencing semesters: 2
Further unit of study information
Unit of study handbook: USSC6917
Costs and scholarships information: Costs and Scholarships
Final dates to withdraw from units of study: Census Dates
Available for study abroad and exchange: Yes