An in-depth “forensic” exploration of the urban artifact that is Paris through the study of a variety of texts, films, paintings, engravings, and maps. The course will explore competing ambitions, economic pressures, and ideologies that have, over centuries, produced one of the most visited cities in the world.

(This class will close for enrollment on Friday, 9/6). This class will offer students a historical exploration of the urban artifact that is Paris. Proceeding “forensically,” the class aims to peel back what is visible to today’s observer in order to uncover the historical, economic, and ideological forces that have produced one of the most visited cities in the world. Students can expect, first, to gain knowledge of the city’s infrastructure, from its historical center to its marginalized outer suburbs. More generally, we will attend to the overlapping layers in Paris’s built environment, which is also to say the way that the Instagrammable urban present is haunted by the displacements and traumas of the past. Rather than following a textbook, we will be reading a variety of primary and secondary texts (poems, a novel, a memoir, part of a play; ephemeral pieces and testimonials; selections from historical and sociological studies), as well as viewing a number of films and looking at a lot of visual works (paintings, engravings, photos, maps, graffiti). A brief data science unit studying recent trends in gentrification will complete our semester.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills