London: Walking the City

What is a city? Is it constituted of buildings? People? Institutions? This module introduces the city as a series of dynamic practices: the movement of people; the proposition of highways and alleyways, green spaces and social housing; the configuration and scheduling of transport; the regulation and timetabled glow of light; the whiffs and breezes and pockets of air pollution. It is also the circulation of ideas and the pulse of affect. This module offers a series of weekly encounters with the literary and performative city. Students will study a range of literary and theoretical texts, and walk London, travelling along its transport connections, listening to guides, looking around them and engaging self-reflexively with the meanings and imperatives found in the city. 

This module asks you to think about the different ways that we might define a city and to explore different perspectives on London inflected by mobility, migration, class and gender. In particular, the module asks you to consider pedestrian experiences and the theatre of the street from the early modern period  to the present day. Through reading a range of literary and theoretical texts, you will develop your understanding of the role of literature, performance and cultural institutions in producing and contesting urban experience. The module also aims to explore texts in their geographical and spatial context, and to this end teaching includes guided walks and visits to key sites of cultural production. You will develop skills of literary analysis in relation to place, both through writing and through seminar discussion of required reading and site visits. Assignments will also enable you to reflect on and articulate your own experiences walking as well as developing skills of planning and execution of writing and sound production, creative and critical response to texts and places, and independent research.

Course content is subject to change.