SCHOOL OF AMERICAN & CANADIAN STUDIES

 

MA Urbanism and the Emergence of Modern Visual Culture

 

1. Module code          V9 D 017

 

2. Credits                    30

 

3. Level                       D

 

4. Year                                    2000-2001

 

5. Semester                Spring

 

6. Tutors                     Professor Douglas Tallack (ext. 14262)

                                    E‑mail: douglas.tallack@nottingham.ac.uk

                                    Dr Anna Notaro (ext. 14241)

                                    E-mail: anna.notaro@nottingham.ac.uk

 

7. Office hours            To be posted on the tutors’ noticeboards.

 

8. Pre‑requisites         Completion of core module or permission of option tutor and course co-ordinator

 

9. Description

 

This module focuses primarily upon the American city in the period of widespread modernization – with a coda on the post-modern city - and traces the emergence of both “urbanism” and a distinctively visual culture. Comparisons with European urban and visual culture will be included where appropriate. Themes and theoretical issues may include, among others: temporal/spatial readings of urban space; the relationship between painting, photography, architecture, and film; realism, modernism and post-modernism and the corresponding forms of urban representation; modernism and mass culture; scopic regimes and models of vision; and, generally, the relationship between visuality and material changes in an urban context.

 

10. Objectives

 

Students will be introduced to visual analysis and visual theory and encouraged to develop an inter-disciplinary approach both to visual culture and the city. The assessment provides training in a short research topic which will be submitted in the form of an extended essay, thereby serving as preparation for an M.A. (and PhD) thesis.

 

11. Method and frequency of class

 

A minimum of twenty hours contact over the 12-week semester period, a mixture of seminar, lecture, computer-assisted learning, and individual essay tutorial.

 

Seminars: Thursdays, 6.00 - 8.00pm, School of American & Cana­dian Studies Seminar Room, Trent Building, B76

 

Students will be asked to prepare a 10-minute introduction to one of the seminars.

 

Tutorials: At least two individual tutorials to plan the extended essay. Tutorials can be arranged at mutually convenient times with either tutor, though office hours will also be scheduled.

 

12. Assessment, including deadline

 

One 3,500‑4,000 word essay.

 

Deadline: Friday, 15th June, noon.

 

Two copies should be submitted either using the Essay Box, located at reception in the School Office or by recorded delivery to:

Douglas Tallack, School of American & Canadian Studies, University Park, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG2 5AG.

 

The essay should be word‑processed/typed, double‑spaced and should follow a recognized stylesheet e.g. MLA Handbook or K. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers (both in the Library).

 

Please note that although the module has a week‑by‑week syllabus and students are expected to attend and do justice to all of the topics, the assessment can be linked to individual interests within the broad area covered by the module. By linking the essay to the subject matter of the "home" M.A., and with the agreement of that M.A.'s convener, it should be possible to count this module as one of the required modules. But if students do not want to so limit the essay topic, then this module will count as an option within the "home" M.A.

 

Any American Studies Erasmus/Socrates students taking this module might wish to have it counted as part of the M.A. in American Studies with European Modules. Please consult Dr Anna Notaro (e-mail above).

 

13. Module evaluation          

 

Students will be asked to complete a questionnaire at the end of the module

 

14. List of seminars, readings

 

See below

 

15. Essay questions

 

The essay question should be devised in consultation with the tutor.

            SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS & REQUIRED READING

 

KEY                B = ordered through Blackwell's Bookshop, Portland Building

                        SL = Short Loan Collection

                        W = One week Loan

                        P = Photocopied extract provided by tutor

                        C = One copy available in Urbanism cubby-hole (please return after use)

T = available from tutor.

 

Please let the appropriate tutor know if books are not in stock in either bookshop or library. Where a copy is in Short Loan, there should also be a longer‑loan copy in the Library.

 

Videos have also been assigned as Required Reading for some weeks and these can be borrowed from the School Office, returnable as soon as possible. Please re-wind to the beginning of the programme. Video-players are in the Library. Please be patient with the Office – staff there can only provide the video when it is returned quickly by the other members of the seminar.

 

When videos have been listed under Secondary Reading, you should give the Office staff perhaps a day’s notice so that they can fetch the video from the store. Either call by or telephone (9514261) or e-mail hazel.spurr@nottingham.ac.uk

 

Web-sites and net-lists are an increasingly important source of material and the following should be useful during the course and when researching the extended essay. Please let the tutors know of any additional web-sites which prove useful.

 

http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/citysites/- Balshaw, Maria, Kennedy, Liam, Notaro, Anna, and Tallack, Douglas (eds), City Sites: Multi-media Essays on New York and Chicago, 1870s-1930s

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/3cities/ - The 3Cities project (“Literary and Visual Representations of Three American Cities: New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, 1870s-1930s. For essays, go to the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles pages and to the Conferences page.

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~urban - Urban History homepage. http://www.memory.loc.gov – the homepage of the Library of Congress. From there, one can reach the “American Memory” page and list the various collections e.g. the Detroit Collection of photographs; Early Films of the City etc.

http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/ - American Studies Crossroads Project at Georgetown University. Go to the New American Studies Web and click on an appropriate linek e.g. Visual Culture.

http://www.eastman.org – George Eastman House: International Museum of Photography and Film.

http://www.nmaa.si.edu – National Museum of American Art

http://photographymuseum.com/ - The American Museum of Photography.

http://www.mcny.org - Museum of the City of New York

http://www.whitney.org – Whitney Museum of American Art.

http://moma.org – Museum of Modern Art

http://www.icp.org – International Center for Photography

http://www.skyscraper.org/guide.html – Skyscraper Museum

 

 

 

 

WEEK 1

 

Thursday 1st February, 6-8 pm (Douglas Tallack)

 

1. Course introduction

2. Picturing the modern city: 1. Map-pictures and picturesque Views

 

No required reading for this week. It would be sensible, however, to start the reading/viewing for later weeks. Please note that the reading for Week 4 is too bulky to photocopy so please make advance preparation to obtain it through Short Loan.

 

Secondary Reading

 

Alpers, Svetlana, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century

Balshaw, Maria and Kennedy, Liam (eds), Urban Space and Representation (SL)

Black, Mary, Old New York in Early Photographs, 1853-1901: 196 Prints from the Collection of the New-York Historical Society

Boelhower, William, “The Mysteries of Chicago: Floating in a Sea of Signs,” in Maria Balshaw, Liam Kennedy, Anna Notaro, Douglas Tallack (eds), City Sites: Multi-media Essays on New York and Chicago. http://www.citysites.org.uk and go to “Essays” and then to “Chicago Gateways.”

Burrows, E.G. and Wallace, M. Gotham: A History of New York to 1898

Bryant, Edward Joseph Pennell’s New York Etchings

Domosh, Mona, Invented Cities: The Creation of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century New York and Boston

Frank, W. et al, eds., America and Alfred Stieglitz

Gregory, Derek, Geographical Imaginations

Gregory, Derek, Power, Knowledge and Geography

Hales, Peter Bacon, “Instantiating Urban Space: Forms of Representation and the Redefining of Chicago at the Fin-de-Siecle and the Opening of the Millenium,” available on the 3Cities research project web-site: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/3cities/ and go to the Chicago Page.

Jackson, P. (1989) Maps of Meaning

King, Moses, King’s Handbook of New York City, 2 vols.

King, Moses King’s Views of New York 1896-1915 and Brooklyn 1905

Kouwenhoven, John A. The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York: An Essay in Graphic History,

Norman, D. Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer

Phillips, Patricia C. (ed.), City Speculations (T)

Sharpe, W. and Wallock, L. (eds), Visions of the Modern City

Simmons, Peter, Gotham Comes of Age: New York Through the Lens of the Byron Company ??

Stieglitz, Alfred, “Pictorial Photography,” in Alan Trachtenberg (ed.), Classic Essays on Photography (W)

Stern, Robert A.M. et al, New York, 1900

Stern, Robert A.M. et al, New York, 1930

Stern, Robert A.M. et al, New York, 1960

Taylor, William R., In Pursuit of Gotham: Culture and Commerce in New York, ch. 2 and 4 (W)

Walsh, John, “Attraction of the Flatiron Building: Construction Processes,” in Maria Balshaw, Liam Kennedy, Anna Notaro, Douglas Tallack (eds), City Sites: Multi-media Essays on New York and Chicago. http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/citysites/ and go to Essays.

Weaver, Mike (1986) Alvin Langdon Coburn: Symbolist Photographer, 1882-1966. Beyond the Craft

Wood, Denis (1992) The Power of Maps

 

 

WEEK 2

 

Thursday 8th February (distance learning)

 

Picturing the modern city: 2. Documentary photography (Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine)

 

There is no Thursday seminar this week. Instead – at any time which is convenient during the week and, in any case, before starting reading for week 3 - you should complete the following six assignments of  required reading/viewing:

 

1. Tallack, Douglas, Documentary Photography: Jacob Riis (CAL - Computer-assisted-learning -programme)

 

This CAL programme is interactive and is therefore the substitute for the regular seminar. The reasons for using this as just one method amongst more traditional teaching methods are:

i)                    it  releases more of the tutor’s time for extended essay tutorials later in the module;

ii)                   you will be asked to interact with the programme in ways that are not always possible in groups;

iii)                 you can work at your own speed;

iv)                 you can access the programme as many times as you wish and it is always the same, whereas lectures are (variable) one-offs; and

v)                  the programme allows images and text to be brought together in interesting ways that are sometimes difficult to manage with slides, handouts etc.

 

Here, then, are the instructions:

 

??

 

The programme has a "Notebook" facility so that when you are asked to interact with the programme you can make notes, save them to disk (take a floppy disk with you if you want to take your notes away) or print them out.

 

When you logout you will be asked for your views on the CAL programme so that we know what worked well and what needs changing.

 

2. Tallack, Douglas “The Rhetoric of Space: Jacob Riis and the Lower East Side” in Maria Balshaw, Liam Kennedy, Anna Notaro, Douglas Tallack (eds), City Sites: Multi-media Essays on New York and Chicago. This is a much-expanded version of the CAL programme (see 1, above) and is available on the following web-site:

http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/citysites/. Go to “Essays” and then to “Lower East Side.”

 

3. The Photographer as Witness (30 minutes) (available on video-cassette133 or 201 from the School Office)??

 

4. Hine (?? minutes) (available on video-cassette ?? from the School Office)??

Please note: this is a US video and the Library video-players might not play NTSC tapes. If you wish to use the video-player in the School seminar room, please e-mail anna.notaro@nottingham.ac.uk and she will make the equipment available in at a mutually convenient time on either Thursday 8th of 15th February.

 

5. Picturing the Modern City (section 1 on “Photography”) (15 minutes) (available on video-cassette 91 or 204 from the School Office)??

 

6. At least one of the following:

 

i)                    Burgin, Victor, Thinking Photography, pp. 10-13 (B, SL, W)

ii)                   Jay, Martin, "Photo‑unrealism: The Contribution of the Camera to the Crisis of Ocularcentrism" in S. Melville & B. Readings (eds), Vision and Textuality, pp. 344‑60 (SL)

iii)                 Stange, Maren, Symbols of Ideal Life, ch. ?? (SL)

iv)                 Tagg, John, The Burden of Representation, ch. ?? (SL)

v)                  Trachtenberg, Alan, “Image and Ideology: New York in the Photographer’s Eye,” Journal of Urban History, 10 (August), 453-64; rpt in Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy (eds), Reading American Art, ch. 14 (SL)

 

Secondary Reading/Viewing

 

Alland, A. Jacob Riis: Photographer and Citizen

Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

John Berger, Ways of Seeing

John Berger, Ways of Seeing, programme 1 (30 minutes) (available on video-cassette164 or 181.

Conrad, Peter, The Art of the City: Views and Versions of New York (SL, W)

Hales, Peter Bacon, Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839‑1915 (T)??

Hales, Peter Bacon, “Instantiating Urban Space: Forms of Representation and the Redefining of Chicago at the Fin-de-Siecle and the Opening of the Millenium,” [section on Riis and Hine], available on the 3Cities research project web-site: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/3cities/ and go to the Chicago page.

McQuire, Scott (1998), Visions of Modernity: Representation, Memory, Time and Space in the Age of the Camera

Orvell, Miles, The Real Thing

Riis, Jacob, How the Other Half Lives (B, SL). The original texts – with woodcuts rather than photographs is available at: ?? And the Riis collection is at the Museum of the City of New York: http://www.mcny.org

Sontag, Susan, On Photography

Stein, Sally, “Making Connections with the Camera: Photography and Social Mobility in the Career of Jacob Riis,” Afterimage, 10, 10 (May 1983), 9-16 (T)??

Tallack, Douglas, "City Sites", The Oxford Art Journal, 20, 2 (1997), pp. 89-92 (T)

Trachtenberg, Alan (ed.), Classic Essays on Photography, particularly Lewis Hine, “Social Photography,” and the essays in Part 4 (W)

Wells, L., Photography: A Critical Introduction (W)

More??

 

WEEK 3

 

Thursday 15th February, 6-8 pm (Anna Notaro)

 

Theorising the sights/sites

 

Required Reading

 

1. Jay, Martin, "Scopic Regimes of Modernity" (P) in M. Jay, Force Fields, ch. 9 (SL); rpt. in Hal Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality, pp. 3‑28 (B, SL, W); and in S. Lash & J. Friedman (eds) , Modernity and Identity (SL)

 

2. Crary, Jonathan, "Modernizing Vision" (P) in Hal Foster, ed., Vision and Visuality, pp. 29‑44 (B, SL, W)

 

3. Bryson, Norman, Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze, ch. 5 (P) (but the early pages are useful in understanding Bryson's larger project) (B, W)

 

4. Robbins, Kevin, “The City in the Field of Vision,” in his Into the Image: Culture and Politics in the Field of Vision, ch. 6 (P)

 

Secondary Reading

 

Alberti, L. B., Alberti on Painting

Agnew, J. and Duncan, (eds) The Power of Place

Arnheim, R., Visual Thinking

The Block Reader in Visual Culture

Bryson, N., M.A. Holly and K. Moxley (eds), Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations

Calvino, Italo, Invisible Cities

Carey, W. "Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan and the Emergence of Visual Society", Prospects??

Carter, E., Donald, J. and J. Squires (eds), Space and Place

Caws, Mary A. (ed.), City Images: Perspectives from Literature, Philosophy, and Film

Charney, L. and Schwartz, V. R. (eds), Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (SL)

Clay, Grady, Close‑Up: How to Read the American City

Crary, Jonathan, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (W)

Damisch, Hubert, The Origins of Perspective

Donald, James, Imagining the Modern City (SL)

Dunning, W. V., Changing Images of Pictorial Space: A History of Spatial Illusion in Painting??

Flynn, T., "Foucault and the Eclipse of Vision" in David Levin (ed.) Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision

Gombrich, Ernst, Art and Illusion

Gregory, Derek, Geographical Imaginations

Gregory, Derek, Power, Knowledge and Geography

GUST, The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis

Heywood, Ian and Sandywell, Barry (eds), Interpreting Visual Culture: Explorations in the Hermeneutics of the Visual ??

Jay, Martin, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth‑Century French Thought

Jenks, Chris (ed.), Visual Culture (B, SL)

Krauss, Rosalind E., The Optical Unconscious

Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space

Lefebvre, Henri, Writings on Cities, ed. E. Kofman and E. Lebas

LeGates, Richard and Stout, Frederic eds The City Reader

Miller, Jonathan, On Reflection

Miller, Jonathan, On Reflection (20 mins) available on video-cassette ??.

Mitchell, W. I. T., Iconology (ch. 1 “What is an Image?” and essay on Marx and camera obscura)

Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory

Mitzoft (ed.) Visual Culture: A Reader (B, SL)

Pile, Steve, The Body and the City: Psychoanalysis, Space and Subjectivity

Sharpe, W. and Wallock, L. (eds), Visions of the Modern City

Sobchack, Vivien, The Address of the Eye

Taylor, L. (ed) Visualizing Theory

Westwood, Sally and Williams, John (eds), Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs and Memories (SL)

 

 

WEEK 4

 

Thursday 22nd February (DT)

 

The painting of modern urban life: The Ashcan School

 

Required Reading

 

1. Rebecca Zurier et al, Metropolitan Lives, pp. ?? (SL, W)

 

2. Barbara Weinberg et al, American Realism and Impressionism, pp. 3-13, 135-99 (SL, W) (also to be read for next week)??

 

3. At least one from the following (if a full book is listed then just “dip” into it according to interest or relevance)

 

Conrad, Peter (1984), The Art of the City: Views and Versions of New York (pages on the Ashcan School) (SL, W)??

Doezema, M. (1992) George Bellows and Urban America

Fairman, D. "The Landscape of Display: The Ashcan School, Spectacle, and the Staging of Everyday Life", Prospects, 18 (1993), pp. 205‑36.

Hills, Patricia,  "John Sloan's Images of Working‑Class Women", Prospects, 5, 1980, 157‑96; rpt in Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy (eds), Reading American Art, ch. 15 (SL)??

Loughery, J., John Sloan

Lucie‑Smith, Edward, American Realism

Quick, M., Myers, J., Doezema, M., and Kelly, F., The Paintings of George Bellows

Milroy, E., Painters of a New Century: The Eight and American Art

Montgomery, Maureen E., Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York

Perlman, B. B. The Immortal Eight

Perlman, R. Robert Henri: His Life and Art

Tallack, Douglas, “City Sights: Mapping and Representing New York City,” in Maria Balshaw and Liam Kennedy (eds), Urban Space and Representation, pp. 25-38 (SL)

 

Secondary Reading

 

See above.

 

 

WEEK 5

 

Thursday 1st March (DT)

 

The painting of modern urban life: Impressionism and the city

 

Required Reading/Viewing

 

1.      Clark, T. J., The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers, pp. 3‑78 (esp. pp. 3‑22) (P, B, SL, W)

 

2.      Pollock, Griselda, "Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity" in her Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, ch. 3 (P, B, SL, W)

 

3.      Barbara Weinberg et al, American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, pp. 3-13, 135-99 (SL, W)

 

4.      American Impressionism (available on video-cassette ?? from the School Office)?? Please note: this is a US video and the Library video-players might not play NTSC tapes. If enough students wish to use the video-player in the School seminar room (for this or other videos), Douglas Tallack will make the equipment available 30 minutes before the regular seminar on 1st March.

 

Secondary Reading

 

Baudelaire, Charles, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

Benjamin, ??

            Boyle, R. J. (1974) American Impressionism

Brettell, R. R. The Impressionist and the City

Broude, N. Impressionism: A Feminist Reading        

Buck‑Morss, Susan, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project

Drucker, Johanna, Theorising Modernism

Fort, Ilene Susan, The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam

Fort, Ilene Susan. Childe Hassam's New York

Montgomery, E.M. American Impressionsts

Frascina, F., Blake, N., Fer, B., Garb, T., Harrison, C., Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century

Frisby, David, Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin

Gaehtgens, T W and Ickstadt, H. eds., American Icons: Transatlatic Perspectives in 18C and 19C American Art (essay on Impressionism)

Gerdts, W. H. (1994) Impressionist New York

Gilloch, Graham, Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the Dreamworld of Modernity

Hiesinger, U. W. Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters

Hoopes, D. The American Impressionists

Hughes, R. The Shock of the New

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918

Paris: Spectacle of Modernity (25 minutes), on video-cassette 77

Peters, L. N. American Impressionist Materpieces

A Tale of Two Cities: Paris and Rome (60 minutes) on video cassette 264.

Wilson, Elizabeth, "The Invisible flaneur", New Left Review, ??, 191, 1992

Wolff, Janet, "The Invisible Flaneuse: Women and the Literature of Modernity", Theory, Culture and Society, 2, 3, pp. 37‑46.

 

 

WEEK 6

 

Thursday 8th March (DT)

 

Modern spaces

 

Required Reading

 

GRIDS AND OTHER ABSTRACT SPACES

 

Simply make sure you are broadly familiar with some Piet Mondrian or Barnett Newman reproductions in books in the library or surf the net. Slides will be used in the seminar, of course.

 

1.      Greenberg, Clement, "Modernist Painting" (P) in his Collected Essays rpt in F. Frascina and C. Harrison (eds), Modern Art and Modernism, pp. 5‑10 (W) and in C. Harrison and P. Wood (eds.), Art in Theory, 1900‑1990, pp. 754‑60 (SL, W)

 

2.      Krauss, Rosalind, The Originality of the Avant‑Garde and Other Modernist Myths, pp. 9‑22 (P, SL, W); rpt from October, 9 (Summer 1979) and October, 20 (Spring 1982), respectively.

 

3.      Gandelsonas, Mario The Urban Text (P)

 

4.      Sennett, Richard, "The Grid" in his The Consience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities, pp. 46‑62 (P, SL, W)

 

UNCANNY SPACES

 

Simply make sure you are broadly familiar with some Hopper reproductions in books in the library or surf the net (e.g. http://www.whitney.org – Whitney Museum of American Art). Slides will be used in the seminar, of course.

 

5.      Vidler, Anthony, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely, pp. 3‑14 and 167‑75, 217ff (P, SL, W)??

 

6.      Tallack, Douglas, “Waiting, Waiting: The Hotel Lobby,” available on the 3Cities research project web-site: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/3cities/ and go to the Conferences page. Then click on “Urban Space and Representation” (Nottingham conference) and scroll down to find the essay.

 

 

Secondary Reading

 

Hughes, Robert, American Visions, pp. 422-30 (SL)

Lyons, Deborah and Adam Weinberg (eds), Edward Hopper and the American Imagination ??

Drucker, Johanna, Theorising Modernism

Elderfield, J. (1972) "Grids", Artforum, 10, May, 52‑9??

Gandelsonas, Mario, X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City

Koolhaas, R. (1978) Delirious New York,

London (a film by Patrick Keiller, 1994) (95 minutes), available on video-cassette 75 Fried, M. "Modernist Painting and Formal Criticism", The American Scholar, Autumn 1964; rpt in C. Harrison and P. Wood, eds., Art in Theory

Vidler, Anthony, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely, pp. 3‑14 and 167‑75 (SL, W)

Borden, I. et al Strangely Familiar: Narratives of Architecture in the City ??

Carter, E., Donald, J. and J. Squires, eds., (1993) Space and Place

Colin Rowe essay Vidler 219

Rowe, C. and Koetter, F. (1978) Collage City

Bois, Yves‑Alain, Painting as Model

Benjamin, Andrew, What is Abstraction

Andrew Benjamin (ed.), Abstraction, Journal of Philosophy and the Visual Arts, 5, 25-35, 1995

Greenberg, C. Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism

Hughes, R. The Shock of the New

Fer, Briony (1997) On Abstract Art

Modern Art: Mondrian (30 minutes) on video-cassette 269.

Moszynska, Anna, Abstract Art

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918

Pile, Steve, The Body and the City: Psychoanalysis, Space and Subjectivity

 

 

                                                          WEEK 7

 

Thursday 15th March (AN)

 

The city of the future

 

Required Reading

 

1.      Ferriss, Hugh, The Metropolis of Tomorrow (SL) pp.148-198

 

2.      Notaro, Anna, “The Skyline,” in Maria Balshaw, Liam Kennedy, Anna Notaro, Douglas Tallack (eds), City Sites: Multi-media Essays on New York and Chicago. http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/citysites/ and go to Essays.

 

3.      Haskell, Barbara, Joseph Stella (W/Ordinary loan) pp. 37-57 and pp. 77-105

 

4.      Schleier, Merrill, The Skyscraper in American Art, ch.  4 (W/Ordinary loan)

 

Secondary Reading

 

Baur, John I.H. (1971) Joseph Stella

Jaffe, I.B. Joseph Stella

Kasson, John (1998), “Seeing Coney Island, Seeing Culture: Joseph Stella’s Battle of Lights, The Yale Journal of Criticism, 11, 1 (Spring), 95-101

Apollonio, Umberto (ed.) (1973) Futurist Manifestos

Davidson, A.A. (1994) Early American Modernist Painting, 1910‑1935

Flanner, Janet (1926) The Cubical City

Hand, John Oliver (1981) “Futurism in America, 1901-1914,” Art Journal, 41 (Winter).

Hughes, Robert, American Visions, ch. 6 (SL)

Hughes, Robert The Shock of the New, ch. ?? (SL)

Kozloff, M. (1973) Cubism/Futurism

Leach, Jean Ferriss (1980), Architectural Visions: The Drawings of Hugh Ferriss

Perloff, Marjorie (1986) The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture

McNamara, Kevin R., Urban Verbs: Arts and Discourses of American Cities, ch. 6

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918

 

 

WEEK 8

 

Thursday 22nd March (AN)

 

The cinematic city: from  Manhatta to Metropolis to

 

Required Reading/Viewing

 

1.      Metropolis on video-cassette available from the School Office

 

2.      Picturing the Modern City (section 2 on “Cinema”) (15 minutes) (available on video-cassette 91 or 204 from the School Office)??

 

3.      291 Manhatta (7 minutes) on video-cassette 291 or 292 available from the School Office.

 

4.       Donald, James, "The City, The Cinema: Modern Spaces" in Chris Jenks (ed.), Visual Culture, ch. 5 (P, B, SL, W); rpt in James Donald, Imagining the Modern City, ch. 3 (SL)

 

5.      Gold, J.R. "From Metropolis to the city: Film Visions of the Future City, 1919-1939" in J. burgess, J.R. Gold eds. Geography, the Media & Popular Culture (ordinary loan)

 

6.      Neumann, D. Film Architecture, pp.13-25; pp.33-38; pp.94-98. (P)

 

Secondary Reading/Viewing

 

Albrecht, Donald, Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies

Clarke, David B. (ed.), The Cinematic City

Elsaesser, Thomas (ed.), Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative (SL, W)

The Last Machine: Tales from the City (40 minutes) on video 226.

Lavin, M. et al Montage and Modern Life, 1919‑1942,

Agrest, D. I. (1991) Architecture from Without: Theoretical Framings for a Critical Practice

Bruno, Giuliana (1997) “Site-seeing: Architecture and the Moving Image,” Wide Angle, 19, 4 (October), pp. 8-24

Bruno, Giuliana, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map: Cultural Theory and the City Films of Elvira Notari, pp. ??

Charney, L. and Schwartz, V. R. (eds), Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life

Christie, I. (1994) The Last Machine

Film Montage: Projection of Modernity (30 minutes), available on vide-cassettes 64 or 199.

Hammen, Scott (1979), "Sheeler and Strand's `Manhatta’: A Neglected Masterpiece", Afterimage, 6, 6 (January), 6-7 (T)

GUST, The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis

Caws, M. A. (ed.), City Images: Perspectives from Literature, Philosophy, and Film

 

 

EASTER VACATION (24th March to 22nd April inclusive)

 

 

WEEK 9

 

Thursday 26th April (AN)

 

The Cinematic City 2: Blade Runner

 

Required Reading/Viewing

1.      GUST, The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis video available from the School Office

2.      Blade Runner video available from the School Office

3.      Clark, David B. The Cinematic City, ch.7 (P)

4.      Jameson, Fredric,  Postmodernism, ch. 'Theories of the Postmodern', pp. 1-55 (B, P, SL, W)

5.      Harvey, David, The Conditions of Postmodernity (SL, W) ch.18

6.      Neumann, D. Film Architecture, pp.148-152 (P)

Secondary Reading/Viewing

 

Blade Runner The Internet Movie Data Base http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0083658

 

Bruno, G.(1987) 'Ramble city: postmodernism and Blade Runner', October 41, pp. 61-74.

Davis, M.  (1992) 'Beyond Blade Runner. Urban Control - the ecology of fear' Open Magazine Pamphlet Series 23, Westfield, NJ, Open Media.

Deutelbaum, M. (1989) 'Memory/Visual Design: The Remembered Sights of Blade Runner' Film/Literature Quarterly 17, 1 pp. 66-71.

Dick, P.K.  (1972) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? London, Grafton.

Instrell, R. (1992) 'Blade Runner: the economic shaping of a film' in J.Orr and C. Nicholson (eds.) Cinema and fiction: New Modes of Adapting, 1950-1990, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 160-170.

Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, London, Verso.

Kennedy, H. (1982) 'Ridley Scott interview', Film Comment 18 (4), p. 66.

Lyotard, J.F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

Marder, E. (1991) 'Blade Runner's moving still' Camera Obscura 27, pp. 88-107.

 

WEEK 10

 

Post-modern spaces: 1. Theory

 

Thursday 3rd May (DT)

 

 

Required Reading

 

1.      Certeau, Michel de, "Walking in the City" in his The Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 91‑110 (P, SL, W)

 

2.      Either: Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish, pp. 195‑228 (SL, W); partially rpt in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader, pp 207‑13 (B, SL, W); and in Neil Leach (ed.) Rethinking Architecture (SL, W)

Or: Foucault, Michel, "Of Other Spaces", Diacritics, 16, (1986), pp. 22‑27 (P).

 

3.      Jameson, Fredric, "Cognitive Mapping", in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. ?? (P, SL, W)

 

4.      Hollevoet, Christine et al, The Power of the City/The City of Power, pp. ?? (P)

 

5.      Borden, Iain, “A Performative Critique of the American City: the Urban Practice of Skateboarding, 1958-1998,” available on the 3Cities research project web-site: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/3cities/ and go to the New York page.

 

Secondary Reading/Viewing

 

Bell, D. and Valentine, G. (eds), Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexuality

Benko, G. and Strohmayer, U. Space and Social Theory: Geographic Interpretations of Postmodernity

Burgin, V., The End of Art Theory

Burgin, Victor, In/different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture

Carter, E., Donald, J. and J. Squires, eds., Space and Place

Colomina, B. ed. Sexuality and Space

Castells, M. The Informational City

Connor, Steven, Postmodern Culture??

Cook TCS??

Crimp, D. (1980) "On the Photographic Activity of Postmodernism", October, 15 (Winter 1980).

Davidson, C. C. (ed) Anyplace

Debord, G. The Society of the Spectacle

Duncanson, James S. (1987), “Review of Urban Imagery: Cognitive Mapping,” Urban Geography, 8, 264-72

Ellin, N., Postmodern Urbanism

Entrikin, J. N., The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity

Flynn, T., "Foucault and the Eclipse of Vision" in David Levin (ed.) Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision

Foster, Hal (ed.), Postmodern Culture??

Friedlander, R. and Boden, D. (eds), NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity

Hales, Peter Bacon, Atomic City ??

Harvey, David, The Conditions of Postmodernity (SL, W)

Harvey, David, The Urban Experience

Jay, Martin, “In the Empire of the Gaze: Foucault and the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought,” in David Hoy (ed.), Foucault: A Critical Reader; rpt and revised in Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth‑Century French Thought, ch. 8

Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City

Lyon, D., The Electronic Eye: The Rise of the Surveillance Society

Miller, Jonathan, On Reflection

Miller, Jonathan, On Reflection (available on video-cassette ??)

Mitchell, W.I.T.The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era

Nairne, Sandy, State of the Art

The SciFile: Surveillance Society (30 mins) on v-c 284

Sim City

Soja, Edward, Postmetropolis

Soja, Edward, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory

Soja, Edwards, “Six Discourses on the Postmetropolis,” in Sally Westwood and John Williams (eds), Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs and Memories, ch. 1

Soja, Edward, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places

Virilio, P. (1994) The Vision Machine

Virilio, P. (1988) "The Work of Art in the Age of Electronic Reproduction", Block, 14, 4‑7

Virilio, P. "The Overexposed City", Zone, 1/2  [also in Assemblage, vol 21, 1993??

Zukin, Sharon, Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World,

Zukin, Sharon, The Cultures of Cities

 

 

WEEK 11

 

Thursday 10th May (DT)

 

Post-modern spaces: 2. Contemporary cityscapes

 

Required Reading

 

NEW YORK:

 

1.      Boyer, Christine, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Historical Entertainments, Introduction and ch. 8 or 9?? (P, SL, W)

 

2.      OU video??

 

3.      Zukin ??

 

LOS ANGELES:

 

4.      Soja ??

 

5.      Davis ??

 

6.      EITHER: The United States in the 20th Century: New York City  & Los Angeles (50 minutes) on video-cassette 191 OR: Los Angeles: City of the Future (50 mins) on video-cassette 140 or 167 or 178. All available from the School Office.

 

7.      Zukin on Disney??

 

LAS VEGAS:

 

8.      Venturi, Robert et al, Learning from las Vegas, pp. ?? (P, SL, W, B)

 

9.      Virtually Las Vegas (40 minutes) available on vide-cassette 228 from School Office.

 

Secondary Reading/Viewing

 

Architecture at the Crossroads: 2. Columns & Gables [on postmodern architecture] (40 minutes), avilable on video-cassette 10.

L.A. Story [feature film] (90 minutes) on video-cassette 227.

Mall Time (60+ minutes) on video-cassette 182.

Metropolis: 2. Someone to watch over us (30 minutes) on video-cassette 218 .

Mike Davis' Junkyard of Dreams (45 minutes), on video cassette 100.

Rayner Banham Loves Los Angeles (55 minutes), available on video-cassette 25.

Re-inventing the City (60 minutes) on video-cassette 219.

USA 2000 - City on the Edge (20 minutes) on video-cassette 276

Department of City Planning, Plan for Lower Manhattan (T)

TCS essays ??

Lynch, Kevin, The Visual Environment of Los Angeles

Miller, John, Egotopia: Narcissm and the New American Landscape ??

McNamara, Kevin R., Urban Verbs: Arts and Discourses of American Cities, ch. 6

 

NB: see, also, Secondary Reading for Week 10.

 

 

WEEK 12 AND BEYOND

 

Week beginning Monday 7th May or 14th May (AN/DT, as appropriate to essay topic)

 

All students to have one essay tutorial (by appointment)

 

Further essay tutorials, as necessary and by appointment, through to the essay deadline of Friday, 15th June, noon.