Week One (May 24) - Visualizing the City

Welcome to the course!  Here's what we will be doing today...

Class Discussion:

• Course information
• Background on urbanization, modernity and representation.
• Barbara Mennel, "Modernity and the City Film: Berlin," in Cities and Cinema (Routledge: 2008).

In-class screening:

• Excerpts from the Lumiére Brothers' short films (1895-1897); King Vidor, The Crowd (1928); Woody Allen, Manhattan (1979)
• Fritz Lang,  Metropolis (1927)

For further reading and research:

• Lewis Mumford, "What is a City?"
• Raymond Williams, excerpts from The Country and the City.
• Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, Chapter 1. 
• Erik Lyle, "The Hunt's Donuts Story," On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City, pp. 81-101 (for a different take on 'visualizing' a city).