City Culture 

minimum of 2 years academic study (for Dutch students: including ‘propedeuse’); sufficient level of English

At the end of the course, you will be able to comprehend and critically reflect on the complex interaction between gender, ideology and city culture. You will be able to demonstrate the ways in which gender, 'race', ethnicity, class and sexuality are constitutive of, and are constituted by, urban form and urban life and their representation through a range of concrete examples in different media. You will also be able to formulate a theoretically informed and methodologically sound research project that critically engages with the interaction between ideology and city culture.

The city and its cultures are increasingly important epistemological categories in the fields of cultural studies. This course investigates the significance of gender, sexuality, ‘race’, ethnicity, and class in the production, use, and representation of the city and its urban spaces. It looks at how city culture, the practices of city life and urban forms, have given form and substance to identity over time. In particular, it inquires into how ideologies and city culture interact, asking what role gender plays in the theoretical understanding and concrete experience of the modern city and its urban cultures. The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on research in and across the fields of cultural studies, gender studies and urban studies.