URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

Anthony Andrews & Maria Vesperi Spring 2018

Tue & Fri: 1:00 – 2:20 pm Anthro Lab
Offices & Office Hours:
Andrews: CHL 212 -- Wednesday 1-3, or by appointment -- [email protected]
Vesperi: CHL 233 -- Tuesday 10-11:30, Friday 11-12, or by appointment –[email protected]

Course Description

Anthropologists have developed a variety of approaches to the study of urbanism as a fundamental facet of
the human experience in recent millennia. Through a survey of cases, from Sumer to Mexico City to
Mumbai, we will explore a range of techniques and theoretical approaches and evaluate their contributions
to our contemporary understanding of the nature and culture of cities. The seminar will focus on several
themes, including the origin of cities, conflict in relation to class, ethnicity and racialized constructions,
urban change, and sustainable urban planning.

Requirements and Evaluation

Required readings will include the texts listed below and a large body of material available on Canvas. A
film and video series concurrent with the course will be held on designated Monday evenings in the Anthro
Lab at 7:30 pm. Evaluation of student performance will be based on class participation and three papers of
approximately 1500 words each (6 double-spaced pages). These papers will take the form of critiques, each
addressing at least two reading assignments from the syllabus in a comparative focus, plus two outside
sources – including optional items in the syllabus – in support of the critical arguments. Students will be
encouraged to share their outside sources by helping to compile a class bibliography throughout the
semester.

Students requiring special arrangements and/or accommodations due to documented disability should
contact the instructor as soon as possible to make necessary arrangements. Appropriate verification from
Student Disability Services must be provided. Please visit Student Disability Services in HCL 3 and/or
email [email protected] for more information.

Required Texts

Andrews, Anthony P.
1995 First Cities. St. Remy Press, Montreal // Smithsonian Books, Washington, D.C. [Out-of-print;
available from several vendors on the web; also available on ER on Canvas]

Gmelch, George, and Petra Kuppinger (eds.)

2018 Urban Life. Readings in the Anthropology of the City. 6th edition. Waveland Press, Long Grove,
Illinois.

Huyssen, Andreas (ed.)

2008 Other Cities, Other Worlds. Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age. Duke University Press,
Durham and London.

Low, Setha, and Denise Lawrence-Zuñiga (eds.)

2003 The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.

Marcus, Joyce, and Jeremy A. Sabloff (eds.)

2008 The Ancient City. New Perspectives on Urbanism in the Old and New Worlds. A School for
Advanced Research Resident Scholar Book, Santa Fe.

McDonogh, Gary, Cindy Isenhour, and Melissa Checker, guest eds.

2011 Special Issue: Sustainability in the City: Ethnographic Approaches. City & Society, 23(2).
[available online through NC Library]

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Note: Most articles are either in the reader texts or on electronic reserve, tagged [ER], on Canvas.

CLASS SCHEDULE AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

Introduction to Urban Issues

Jan 30 The Economist

2007 The World Goes to Town. The Economist, May 5. [ER]

Film: A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil (excerpts, in class).

Overview of Historical Approaches to the Study of Urban Life

Feb 2 Dickens, Charles

1985 (orig. 1842) An American Railroad. Lowell and Its Factory System. From American
Notes. A Journey, by C. Dickens: 61-69. [ER]. Also available online at
www.readbookonline.net/read/2388/11499/ -- Read section on the Lowell Factory
System.

Engels, Fredrich
1968 (orig. 1845) The Great Towns. From The Condition of the Working Class in England
(W.O. Henderson & W.H. Chaloner, trans.): 30-87. [ER]

Weber, Max
1921 The Nature of the City. From The City, by M. Weber. Also in Classic Essays on the
Culture of Cities (R. Sennett, ed., 1969): 23-46. [ER]

Optional: Schorske, Carl

1968 The Idea of the City in European Thought: Voltaire to Spengler. In Urbanism in World
Perspective (S. Fava, ed.): 409-24. [ER]

Feb 5 Film: The Wolfpack (Monday, 7:30 pm).

Overview of Contemporary Approaches

Feb 6 Huyssen, Andreas

2008 Introduction: World Cultures, World Cities. In Huyssen: 1-23.

Garcia Canclini, Nestor

2009 What is a City? In City/Art The Urban Scene in Latin America (Rebecca E. Biron, ed.):
37-60. Duke University Press, Durham. [ER]

Foster, George M., and Robert V. Kemper

2018 Anthropological Fieldwork in Cities. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 5-19.

Brettell, Caroline B., and Robert V. Kemper

2018 Cityward Migration in Comparative Perspective. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 277-89.

McDonogh, Gary W.
1993 The Geography of Emptiness. In The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space (R. Rotenberg
& G.M. McDonogh, eds.): 3-15. [ER}

Optional: Gabiam, Nell

2018 Rethinking Camps: Palestinian Refugees in Damascus, Syria. In Gmelch & Kuppinger:
137-52.

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Feb 9 Sorensen, Andre
2009 Neighborhood Streets as Meaningful Spaces: Claiming Rights to Shared Spaces in
Tokyo. City & Society, 21(2): 207-229. [ER]

Murray, Tim, and Penny Crook

2005 Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City: Issues of Scale, Integration and
Complexity. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 9(2): 89-109. [ER]

Rathje, William L.
1989 Rubbish! The Atlantic Monthly, December: 99-109. [ER]

LaRoche, Cheryl J., and Michael L. Blakey

1997 Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground.
Historical Archaeology, 31 (3): 84-106. [ER]

The Prehistoric and Preindustrial City/ The Earliest Cities

Feb 12 Film: Radiant City (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Feb 13 Andrews: Chaps. 1-3

Marcus, Joyce, and Jeremy A. Sabloff

2008 Introduction. In Marcus & Sabloff: Chap. 1: 3-26.

Stone, Elizabeth C
2008 A Tale of Two Cities: Lowland Anatolia and Highland Anatolia. In Marcus & Sabloff:
Chap. 8: 141-64.

Feb 16 Morell, Virginia

2001 The Pyramid Builders. National Geographic, 200 (5; November): 78-99. [ER]

Bard, Kathryn A.
2008 Royal Cities and Cult Centers, Administrative Towns, and Workmen’s Settlements in
Ancient Egypt. In Marcus & Sabloff : Chap. 9: 165-82.

Kuppinger, Petra
1998 The Giza Pyramids: Accommodating Tourism, Leisure and Consumption. City &
Society, Annual Review, 1998: 105-19. [ER]

2018 Waste and Garbage in the City: A Case Study from Cairo, Egypt. Gmelch & Kuppinger:
431-43.

Ghannam, Farha
2008 Two Dreams in a Global City: Class and Space in Urban Egypt. In Huyssen: 267-87.

Feb 19 Film: Dawn of the Maya (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Feb 20 Andrews: Chaps. 4-5

Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark

2008 Indus Urbanism: New Perspectives on its Origin and Character. In Marcus & Sabloff:
Chap. 9 : 183-208.

Stone, Richard
2009 Divining Angkor. National Geographic, 216 (1; July): 26-55. [ER]

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Ancient Cities of the New World: Mesoamerica

Feb 23 Andrews: Chap. 6

Hansen, Richard D.
2001 The First Cities - The Beginnings of Urbanization and State Formation in the Maya
Lowlands. In Maya. Divine Kings of the Rainforest (N. Grube, ed.): 50-65. [ER]

Pyburn, K. Anne
2008 Pomp and Circumstance before Belize. Ancient Maya Commerce and the New River
Conurbation. In Marcus & Sabloff: Chap. 13: 247-72.

Feb 26 Film: The Lost Pyramids of Caral (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Feb 27 Andrews: Chap. 7

Stuart, George E.
1995 The Timeless Vision of Teotihuacán. National Geographic, 188 (6; Dec.): 2-35. [ER]

Hirth, Kenneth G.
2008 Incidental Urbanism. The Structure of the Prehispanic City in Central Mexico. In
Marcus and Sabloff: Chap. 14: 273-97.

Calnek, Edward E.
1976 The Internal Structure of Tenochititlan. In The Valley of Mexico (E.R. Wolf, ed.): 287-
302. [ER]

Ancient Cities of the New World: Andean Region

Mar 2 Andrews: Chap. 8

Coppens, Phil
2010 Caral, The Oldest Town in the New World. Online report at
http://www.philipcoppens.com/caral.html [ER]

Moseley, Michael E.
1975 Chan Chan: Andean Alternative of the Pre-Industrial City. Science, 187 (4173): 219-25.
[ER]

Morris, Craig
2008 Links in the Chain of Inka Cities: Communication, Alliance, and the Cultural Production
of Status, Value, and Power. In Marcus & Sabloff: Chap. 14: 299-319.

ESSAY 1 DUE

Mar 5 Film: City of God (Monday 7:30 pm)

The Destruction of Ancient Cities: Terrorist Politics and the Antiquities Trade

Mar 6 Barnard, Anne

2015 ISIS Speeds up Destruction of Antiquities in Syria. The New York Times, Aug. 24.

2015 ISIS Destroys Triumphal Arches in Palmyra, Syria. The New York Times, Oct 5.

Taub, Ben
2015 The Real Value of the ISIS Antiquities Trade. The New Yorker, Dec. 4.

Myers, Steven Lee, and Nicholas Kulish

2016 ‘Broken System’ Allows ISIS to Profit from Looted Antiquities. New York Times, Jan 9.

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Migration, Poverty, and Upward Mobility

Mar 9 Goode, Judith

2018 How Urban Ethnography Counters Myths about the Poor. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 195-
212.

Offit, Thomas, and Petra Kuppinger

2018 Making a Living in the City: Children and Work in Guatemala City. In Gmelch &
Kuppinger: 474-88.

Vigil, James Diego

2018 Gangs, Poverty, and the Future. . In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 245-256.

Thomas, Deborah A.
2011 Deviant Bodies, 2005/1945. From Exceptional Violence: Embodied Citizenship in
Transnational Jamaica 53-85. Duke University Press, Durham, NC. [ER]

Mar 11 Optional Film: Sin Nombre (Sunday, 7:30 pm)

Mar 12 Film: El Norte (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Mar 13 García Canclini, Nestor

2008 Mexico City, 2010. Improvising Globalization. In Huyssen: 79-95.

Kemper, Robert V.
2010 The Extended Community: Migration and Transformation in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico. In
Gmelch & Kuppinger: 306-20.

Fojas, Camilla
2007 Borderlined in the Global City (of Angels). In Urban Imaginaries: Locating the
Modern City (Alev Cinar & Thomas Bender, eds.): 37-54. University of Minnesota
Press, Minneapolis. [ER]

Richardson, Miles.
2003 Being-in-the-Market Vesus Being-in the Plaza: Material Culture and the Construction of
Social Reality in Spanish America. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 74-91.

Mar 16 Holston, James

2009 The Spirit of Brasilia: Modernity as Experiment and Risk. In City/Art The Urban Scene
in Latin America (Rebecca E. Biron, ed.): 85- 111. Duke University Press, Durham
[ER]

Caldeira, Teresa P. R.
2008. From Modernism to Neoliberalism in Sao Paulo: Reconfiguring the City and Its Citizens.
In Huyssen: 51-77.

Pardue, Derek
2010 In Motion: Transportation and Knowledge in Sao Paulo. In Gmelch, Kemper & Zenner:
157-69. [ER]

SPRING BREAK

The Individual and the City

Mar 26 Film: Midnight Cowboy (Monday, 7:30 pm)

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Mar 27 Milgram, Stanley
2002 (orig. 1970) The Urban Experience: A Psychological Analysis. In Urban Life (4th ed)
(George Gmelch and Walter P. Zenner, eds.): 83-92. Waveland Press, Long Grove, IL.
[ER]

Judin, Hilton
2008 Unsettling Johannesburg: The Country in the City. In Huyssen: 121-46.

Nelson, Nici
2002 (orig. 1996) Surviving in the City: Coping Strategies of Female Migrants in Nairobi,
Kenya. In Urban Life (4th ed) (George Gmelch and Walter P. Zenner, eds.): 235-52.
Waveland Press, Long Grove, IL. [ER]

Ghannam, Farha
2011 Mobility, Liminality and Embodiment in Urban Egypt. American Ethnologist, 38(4):
790-800. [ER]

Durkheim, Emile
1963 Modern Social Pathology. In Emile Durkheim. Selections from his work, with an
Introduction and commentaries by George Simpson: 69-84. Thomas Y. Crowell, NY.
[ER]

Kinship and Community in Urban Life

Mar 30 Orvar, Lofgren

2003 The Sweetness of Home: Class, Culture and Family Life in Sweden. In Low &
Lawrence-Zuñiga: 142-59.

Margaretten, Emily
2011 Standing (K) in: Street Youth and Street Relatedness in South Africa. City & Society,
23(2): 45-65 [ER]

Gregory, Steven
2003 (orig. 1998) Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community. In
Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 284-97.
Ferguson, James
1997 The Country and the City on the Copperbelt. In Culture/Power/Place (A.Gupta and J.
Ferguson, eds.): 137-54. [ER]

Optional: Ghannam, Fraha

2018 Thick Connections: Daily Life in an Urban Community in Egypt. . In Gmelch &
Kuppinger: 169-182.

Gounis, Kostas
1996 Urban Marginality and Ethnographic Practice: On the Ethics of Fieldwork. City &
Society, Annual Review, 1996: 108-18. [ER]

Apr 2 Film: Avalon (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Apr 3 Film: Urban Garden: Fighting for Life and Beauty (in class)

Sokolovsky, Jay
2018 Elders, Urban Community Gardens, Civic Ecology and the Quest for Community. In
Gmelch & Kuppinger: 399-412.

Jankowiak, William and Robert L. Moore

2018 Families, Friends, Neighbors and Communities in Chinese Cities. In Gmelch &

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 Kuppinger: 153-69.

Solidarity and Conflict

Apr 6 Merry, Sally

2018 (orig. 1996) Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. In Gmelch &
Kuppinger: 109-121.

Hersker, A.L., and W. Leap

1996 Representation, Subjectivity and Ethics in Urban Gay Ethnography. City & Society,
Annual Review, 1996: 142-47. [ER]

McDonogh, Gary W.
2003 (orig. 1992) Myth, Space, and Virtue: Bars, Gender, and Change in Barcelona’s Barrio
Chino. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 264-83.

D'Emilio, John
1983 Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the
United States, 1940-1970. Read excerpts. [ER]

ESSAY 2 DUE

Apr 9 Film: Wild Style (Monday, 7:30 pm)

http://www.tout-bon.com/best-of-street-art-2011/ Contemporary Parisian street art with a
focus on Banksy

Apr 10 Raymos-Zanas, Ana Y.

2004 Learning Affect, Embodying Race: Youth, Blackness, and Neoliberal Emotions in Latino
Newark. Transforming Anthropology, 19(2): 86-104. [ER]

Morgan, Marcyliena
2009 Thursday Night at Project Blowed. From The Real Hiphop: Battling for Kowledge,
Power, and Respect in the LA Underground. Duke University Press, Durham. [ER]

Scheld, Suzanne
2018 Dakar: Transformations, Clothing, and Identities. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 378-392.

Miller, Benjamin
1987 The Colonial Polo Club: An Examination of Class Processes in the Suburban-Rural
Fringe. In Cities of the United States: Studies in Urban Anthropology (L. Mullings,
ed.): 198-216. [ER]

Structure and Symbol

Apr 13 Bourdieu, Pierre

2003 (orig. 1971) The Berber House. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 131-41.

Pellow, Deborah
2008 The Architecture of Female Seclusion in West Africa. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 160-
83.

Low, Setha M.
2003 The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear. In Low &
Lawrence-Zuñiga: 284-97; also in Gmelch & Kuppinger 2018: 277-89.

Newman, Andrew
2018 “…And Then the Wall Was Knocked Down”; Movements, Politics, and the Built

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 Environment in Multiethnic Paris. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 257-70.

Optional: Chang, Sen-Dou

1977 The Morphology of Walled Capitals. From The City in Late Imperial China,
by G.W. Skinner: 75-100. [ER]

Apr 16 Film: Do the Right Thing (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Apr 17 Freeman, Richard

2001 The City as Misè-en-scène: A Visual Exploration of the Culture of the Politics in Buenos
Aires. Visual Anthropology Review, 17 (1): 36-59. [Accessible online]

Sarlo, Beatriz
2008 Cultural Landscapes: Buenos Aires from Integration to Fracture. In Huyssen: 27-49.

Rabinow, Paul
2003 (orig. 1982) Ordonnance. Discipline, Regulation. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 353-62.

Davis, Mike
1995 Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space. In Metropolis: Center and
Symbol of our Times. Main Trends of the Modern World (Philip Kasinitz, ed.): 355-68.
New York University Press, New York. [ER]. Also at
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~broglio/1101/davis.html

Life and Work

Apr 20 Powers, Madelon

1997 The "Poor Man's Friend": Saloonkeeper's, Workers, and the Code of Reciprocity in U.S.
Barrooms, 1870-1920. In The Making of Urban America, 2nd ed. (R.A. Mohl, ed.):
153-66. [ER]

Mitchell, Joseph
1993 The Old House at Home (pp. 3-22), and All You Can Hold for Five Bucks (pp. 291-302)
From Up in the Old Hotel [articles originally published in The New Yorker in 1939-40].

Seifert, Donna J.
1991 Within Site of the White House: The Archaeology of Working Women. Historical
Archaeology, 25 (4): 82-108. [ER]

Gable, Eric, and Richard Handler

2003 After Authenticity at an American Heritage Site. In Low & Lawrence-Zuñiga: 370-86

Apr 23 Film: Boyz n the Hood (Monday 7:30 pm)

Apr 24 BACC/READING DAY

Apr 27 Bestor, Theodore C.

2003 (orig. 2001) Markets and Places: Tokyo and the Global Tuna Trade. In Low &
Lawrence-Zuñiga: 284-97.

Anjaria, Jonathan Shapiro

2011 Ordinary States: Everyday Corruption and the Politics of Space in Mumbai. American
Ethnologist, 38(1): 58-72. [ER]

Anand, Nihkil
2018 Left Dry: Water, Politics and Exclusion in Mumbai. In Gmelch & Kuppinger: 460-473.

Yukseker, Deniz

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 2007 Economy and Gender in the Urban Borderland: The Public Culture of Laleli, Istanbul.
In Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City (Alev Cinar & Thomas Bender,
eds.): 17-36. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. [ER]

Pamuk, Orhan
2008 Huzun—Melancholy—Tristesse of Istanbul. In Huyssen: 289-306.

Optional: Kelley, Robin

1997 Looking to Get Paid: How Some Black Youth Put Culture to Work. From Yo’ Mama’s
Disfunktional: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, by Robin Kelley: 43-
77. Beacon Press, Boston. [ER]

Apr 30 Film: Trouble the Water (Monday, 7:30 pm)

Approaching the Sustainable City

May 1 McDonogh, Gary W., Cindy Isenhour, and Melissa Checker

2011 Introduction: Sustainability in the City: Ethnographic Approaches. City & Society, 23(2):
113-16

Isenhour, Cindy
2011 How the Grass Became Greener in the City: On Urban Imaginings and Practices
of Sustainable Living in Sweden. City & Society, 23(2): 117-34.

McDonogh, Gary W.
2011 Learning from Barcelona: Discourse, Power and Praxis in the Sustainable City. City
& Society, 23(2): 135-53

Checker, Melissa
2018 Green Apple, Brown Spots: Environmental Gentrification in New York City. In Gmelch
& Kuppinger: 413-30.

Newman, Andrew
2011 Contested Ecologies: Environmental Activism and Urban Space in Immigrant Paris. City
& Society, 23(2): 192-209.

May 4 Orlando, Giovanni

2011 Sustainable Food vs. Unsustainable Politics in the City of Palermo: The Case of an
Organic Farmers’ Market. City & Society, 23(2): 173-91.

Bubinas, Kathleen
2011 Farmers’ Markets in the Post-Industrial City. City & Society, 23(2): 154-72.

Gagne, Nana Okura

2011 Eating Local in a U.S. City: Constructing “Community”—a Third Place—in a Global
Neoliberal Economy. American Ethnologist 38(2): 281-93. [ER]

Barlett, Peggy F.
2011 Campus Sustainable Food Projects: Critique and Engagement. American Anthropologist
113(2): 101-15. [ER]

Urban Transformation and the Future

May 7 Films: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth a n d Holding Ground (Monday, 7:30 pm)

May 8 Molavi, Ashfin

2007 Sudden City. A feverish dream of the future springs from the sands in Dubai. National
Geographic, 211 (1; January): 94-113. [ER]

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 Prakash, Gyan
2008 Mumbai: The Modern City in Ruins. In Huyssen: 181-203.

Mehrotra, Rahul
2008 Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of Mumbai. In
Huyssen: 205-18

Zenner, Walter P.
2018 Beyond Urban and Rural. Communities in the 21st Century. In Gmelch & Kuppinger:
183-90.

Optional:

Zhang, Yingjin
2008 Remapping Beijing: Polylocality, Globalization, Cinema. In Huyssen: 219-41.

Enwezar, Okwui
2008 Mega-exhibitions: The Antinomies of a Transnational Global Form. In Huyssen: 147-78.

May 9 ESSAY 3 DUE