131-077 Cities of the New World: Ethnographies of Place

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Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of first year History, see Prerequisites.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject explores the growth of cities and the fashioning of urban cultures in the New World, from the founding of Québec City in 1608 until the present day. It provides an overview of urban change in Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand, and focuses upon a small number of inner-city neighbourhood studies in which it is possible to strip away 'outside' overlays (for example, the fashioning of 'slum' and 'ghetto' stereotypes, and historians' homogenising readings of the urban past, together with cycles of 'abandonment' and 'renewal') in order to tease out past lives in these now-vanished communities. Participants in the course are encouraged to apply and extend these themes through original research on cultural heritage sites in Melbourne. The subject is designed to integrate historical analysis with the study of urban material culture. In so doing, it applies an ethnographic approach to interpretation of the past, interweaving historical imagination with context-driven readings of documentary and material records in order to highlight the opportunities for innovative history making which such integration affords.

Assessment

Written work totalling 4000 words.