Grinnell College Department of History Spring 2009 History 295: European Urban History Rob Lewis E-mail: [email protected] Mears 212 Phone: x3482 Course meetings: T-TH 12:45-2:05, Science 1302 Office Hours: M 10-11:30 a.m., W 1:15-2:15 p.m., TH 9:30-11 a.m. While the existence of cities stretches back to antiquity, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are fundamentally associated with urban life. This course analyzes the transformation of the European urban landscape and European urban life from the nineteenth-century explosion of urbanization and industrialization to the present day. We will concentrate on London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, although the course is not a comprehensive history of any of these cities. Particular attention will be devoted to several key themes: the emergence of urban planning, from Baron Haussmann’s work in mid-19th-century Paris to the “New Towns” of post-World War II England and France; the aesthetics of urban life, from the historicism of the Ringstrasse in Vienna to the twentieth-century triumph of the “International Style” and the particular aesthetics of Fascism; the advent of urban “modernity” (and “modernism”) as expressed in politics, art, and a nascent mass consumer and leisure culture; the personal experience of war, poverty, and immigration in the city; and the connection between the urban landscape, political legitimacy, and memory. Course Requirements 1. Discussion (20%) All students are expected to do all of the course readings at the time they are indicated on the syllabus, and to actively participate in class. Our class meetings are mandatory. While you may miss two meetings for any reason, any further failure to attend will have a negative impact on your participation grade unless this absence occurs due to a medical condition or a family emergency. In addition, I reserve the right to not issue a passing grade to any student who misses more than six class sessions (again barring medical or family emergencies). As part of your participation grade, you will – in groups of three – be responsible for one 15-minute oral presentation over the course of the semester, on dates indicated on the syllabus. Your group will do (minimal) outside research on the assigned topic (see “Presentation Schedule”), and will then present your findings in class. (You can be as creative as you would like with the form of the presentation, as long as you all speak and address the topic at hand).2. Papers (60%: 15% for the two 5-page papers, and 30% for the 8-10 page paper) You will submit three essays over the course of the semester. The first two will be 5-page papers, in response to one of several designated questions distributed several weeks in advance. The final paper, 8 to 10 pages in length and due near the end of the semester, intended to give you the opportunity to write about a particular topic or question encountered during the course that you found most particularly engaging. This is not necessarily a primary-source paper (although you have plenty of possibilities in the context of this course); you must, however, go beyond the readings on the syllabus to supplement our class readings. Your paper should give careful attention to previous historiographical approaches to the topic and offer your own analysis and argument about your chosen sources You will also note that you must submit an (ungraded yet mandatory) paper proposal and preliminary biography four weeks ahead of the final paper due date; this consists of a two-paragraph statement of what you intend to write about and the sources you plan on using for the project. You also must submit a two-page paper two weeks later detailing your argument, a sense of the historical “problem” you are approaching, and an outline for the rest of the paper. 3. Final Exam (20%) You will have a take-home final examination dealing synthetically with the overall themes from the course. Texts and Readings The following books are available for purchase at the Grinnell College Bookstore. While I will attempt to place a copy of each on reserve at Burling Library, I would strongly recommend that you purchase them for your own convenience and to look incredibly well-read when you carry them around campus or display them prominently on your bookshelf. Colin Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City (New York: Penguin Books, 2004) Emile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) [Au Bonheur des Dames] Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna. Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1980) Mehdi Charef, Tea in the Harem (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1989) Karen Till, The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) The following readings are required and available on PioneerWeb: Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1984), 90-110 Francis Sheppard, London: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 205-260 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Penguin Books, 1987, orig. 1845), 68-109Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993, orig. 1963), 88-138 Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation and Urban Order (London: Weidenfeld & Nelson, 1998), 239-278, 657-705 Judith Walkowitz, “Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence,” Feminist Studies 8 (3)(1982): 542-574 Ellen Ross, ed., Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860-1920 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2007), 1-39, 45-71 Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965, orig. 1902), 29-57, 89-117 T.C. Horsfall, The Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People: The Example of Germany (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1901), 1-34 Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (Boston; Charles T. Branford Company, 1955), 19-66 Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 31-121 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (Le Corbusier), The Radiant City (London: Faber and Faber, 1964, orig. 1933), 90-142 Zeynep Celik, “Le Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism,” Assemblage No. 17 (April 1992), 58-77 Erik Jensen, “Crowd Control: Boxing Spectatorship and Social Order in Weimar