2023-2024 Catalog

ARCH 10701. Sound and the Built Environment. 100 Units.

Sound and the Built Environment examines the role of sound at all scales of the built world from the room to the city. This course highlights a sound studies approach in which students will learn how to listen deeply, an act of resistance in a culture that suffers from primacy of the visual. Students will also learn about concepts such as the soundscape, how to read a room intuitively through basic concepts of acoustics (reverberation, clarity, balance, etc), the history of buildings designed purposefully for sound, and the role sound plays in urban life throughout history. Deliverables for this course include a sound studies portion in which students will examine soundscapes that impact their lives in Chicago, and a design portion in which students re-evaluate spaces around Chicago through an acoustics lens.

Instructor(s): K. Wagner     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 10701, ARTH 10701

ARCH 11800. Physics and Contemporary Architecture. 100 Units.

Architectural structures form the built environment around us and in many ways create the backbone of our civilization. They push the limits of form and function on the largest human scales, often leading to iconic masterpieces that symbolize the aesthetics as well as the technical achievements of a period. Many architectural advances have been made possible by breakthroughs in the science of materials, which then led to innovation in construction and fabrication techniques. This course will introduce the physics principles that have enabled some of the most innovative architecture of our time. This course will take key ideas and tools from physics and demonstrate their power and relevance in a broader context familiar from everyday experience. The course will challenge students to recognize physics concepts in the built structures that make up the urban environment we live in. Chicago is a most appropriate place for this study; it was the birthplace of the first skyscraper, and ever since it has played an internationally celebrated role in pushing the limits of the architectural state of the art. A long succession of renowned Chicago architects and structural engineers has turned this city into a premier laboratory for architectural innovation. Against this backdrop, the course will show how science, and physics in particular, delivers the conceptual foundations that drive current directions in architecture and open up new opportunities.

Instructor(s): Heinrich M. Jaeger; Sidney Nagel     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some exposure to high-school physics is recommended
Note(s): The course will consist of two lectures per week plus a weekly hands-on workshop (lab) component. The Monday lectures will introduce the physics principles to be explored that week. The Thursday lectures will be delivered by distinguished guest speakers, including renowned architects and engineers. These lectures will be public lectures. They will relate to the physics principle introduced that Monday and explore its ramification within the broader context of contemporary architectural practice. The Thursday afternoon workshop component will involve team-based, hands-on construction projects to develop a better understanding and intuition of the physics principles introduced in the lectures and to obtain a sense of their real-life implications. The workshops will also provide an opportunity to interact with the guest lecturers. Attendance at Thursday lectures is required. This course meets the general education requirement in the physical sciences and may be paired with PHSC 11600, 11700, 12600, or 13400 in order to complete the requirement. This course can be taken for credit towards either the general education requirement in the physical sciences or the Architectural Studies minor, but not both. Students intending to receive physical sciences general education credit should register for PHSC 11800; students intending to receive credit towards the Architectural Studies Minor should register for ARCH 11800.
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 11800, PHSC 11800

ARCH 14146. London vs. Nature: Writing Utopia and Dystopia in the Urban Landscape [Creative Writing Arts Core: R. 100 Units.

In this Arts Core course, students will be introduced to a range of the utopian and dystopian fantasies that writers have produced in response to the metropolis of London as the imperial epicenter of manufactured ecologies, from the late nineteenth century through the present day. They will study early responses to modernism and modernization in the city by figures like William Blake, Frederick Engels, Henry James, Ezra Pound, and Virginia Woolf before moving on to contemporary writers such as R. Murray Schafer, who apprehends the city through "earwitnessing" of noise pollution, and Bhanu Kapil, who recalls the race riots of the 1970s against the backdrop of the Nestle factory on the site of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. Students will be exposed first-hand to how London is read by writers confronting planetary and political crisis through meetings with living publishers, authors, and art collectives like the Museum of Walking, grappling with the continual metamorphosis of the landscape-and through a sequence of on-site visits and psychogeographical experiments, they will have the opportunity to respond to the city in their own writing across a range of genres. (Arts Core)

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Acceptance to the London Study Abroad Program.
Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 12146

ARCH 14201. In and Out: Supply and Waste in 21st Century Dwelling. 100 Units.

In the next 25 years, give or take, the world's population is expected to reach 10 billion souls. 68% of these people, roughly 6.8 billion people, will be living in cities. The challenges of energy, transportation, food production and distribution, shelter are the IN and are, typically, the focus of architecture and its related disciplines. What about the OUT? Fuel emissions, food waste, human waste (solid and liquid), human remains, medical waste, thermal by-products of heating, cooling and manufacture, not to mention building waste to produce housing for 10 billion are the focus of this studio. As we urbanize, as cities expand, as the space for containing waste is ever more remote and the waste itself ever more copious, how do we manage, control or even understand the problem? This course will look at the challenges facing our cities as both recursive and emergent. The scale of these issues is of unprecedented magnitude, though not new in principle. As a practical matter, any solution must simultaneously reference contemporary approaches to waste management and urban sustenance and ancient practices of integration, symbiosis and elimination

Instructor(s): K. Mills     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting November 6, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 14201

ARCH 15706. Skills & Processes for Architecture and Urban Design. 100 Units.

This studio course seeks to acquaint students with a range of skills and methods in design, including manual, digital and hybrid methods. Students will test out several design processes through a series of problem sets and micro-projects, and develop their own personal tools and ways as they go. An emphasis will be put on free play and experimentation, followed by rounds of revision and refinement. We will also consider how historical research, precedent, context and constraint can help meaningfully inform design process, without overly paralyzing it. This is an excellent course to take if you are interested in other studio design courses (such as courses listed ARCH 2419X and ARCH 24267), but want to build up your skills before undertaking a major, quarter-long project.

Instructor(s): S. Park, L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting November 6, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 15706

ARCH 16911. Modeling Contemporary Japanese Architecture. 100 Units.

This undergraduate seminar focuses on contemporary Japanese architecture. It builds on an association between three main pedagogies for the study of architecture: observation, critical reading, and modeling.Our discussions will focus primarily on buildings and works by individual architects and artists that are currently active in Japan and whose work contributes to a broader understanding of architecture as a creative field. Special emphasis will be given to the work of a younger generation of Japanese architects who are currently exerting a significant impact on the development of contemporary Japanese culture.The seminar recognizes the broad use and potential of architectural scale models and intends to use them as a central tool for investigation. Students will analyze buildings through various forms of model making.The construction of physical, three-dimensional scale models will provide a useful platform to further develop insights gained through reading, class discussions, and in-depth study of architectural representations.

Instructor(s): Erez Golani Solomon     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 16911

ARCH 17721. Groundwork: Infrastructure, Aesthetics, and the Built Environment. 100 Units.

Infrastructures are conduits; they carry physical things like water, people, commodities, energy, and waste. But despite appearances, infrastructures are anything but neutral. Pipes, wires, and roads also carry beliefs about how the world should work and for whom it should function, designs that fix into place ideas about commercial circulation, social care, political representation, spatial organization, and economic development. This course will provide a thematic overview of the constructed networks that support the modern built environment, while simultaneously considering the social, spatial, and aesthetic implications of these encompassing systems. Through a historical survey of critical sites-the road, the bridge, the sewer, the mine, and the grid, among others-students will gain a sense of where these systems came from and how they have shaped expectations about our changing relationship with the natural environment.

Instructor(s): Alexander Bierig     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 17721

ARCH 17915. Women's Work. 100 Units.

As a haptic art, an art experienced through touch as well as the other senses, architecture operates at multiple scales: that of hand, building, city. The scale of the hand gives the most direct access to architecture and its furnishings: think of a handrail, a chair, a textile, a brick pattern, a wood detail. This is the realm of craft in architecture and was, for decades, the realm inhabited and ruled by women practitioners. Women designed furniture, made drawings, wove textiles, produced pottery and glasswork as a means of expression within the male world of architectural practice. As an introduction to the study of architecture, craft entails applying principles of proportion, scale, tactility, precision, materiality, and assembly; in this way, craft is a microcosm of architecture. Through a series of projects and readings centered around the craft arts and the women who advanced them, this studio course will introduce students to small-scale making and translate that process to larger scales. Students will undertake two investigations: the first a series of small craft objects and a set of orthographic drawings describing the making process, the second a spatial analysis and workspace for a craft practitioner.

Instructor(s): K. Mills     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 17915, ARTH 17915

ARCH 20000. Understanding the Built Environment. 100 Units.

This course aims to equip students with the basic skills and knowledge required to analyze architecture and the built environment. It offers an introduction to the methods and procedures of the architectural historian. These include practical tasks such as understanding architectural terminology, reading and interpreting architectural drawings, engaging with buildings "on site," and studying buildings in urban context, relative to surrounding buildings, street networks and public spaces. At a broader level, the course will entail critical discussion about the relationship between architecture and society, the building as a historically specific object that also changes over time, the cultural representation of architecture, and modes of perceiving/experiencing the built environment.

Instructor(s): Wei-Cheng Lin      Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. Please note that the course entails an 80-minute meeting on Tuesdays and a 170-minute meeting on Thursdays. The long meetings accommodate off-campus field trips and allow for some travel time. Field trips will be scheduled so students can get back to campus for classes starting at 12:30.
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 20700, ARTH 20700, ARTH 30700

ARCH 20104. Urban Structure and Process. 100 Units.

This course reviews competing theories of urban development, especially their ability to explain the changing nature of cities under the impact of advanced industrialism. Analysis includes a consideration of emerging metropolitan regions, the microstructure of local neighborhoods, and the limitations of the past American experience as a way of developing urban policy both in this country and elsewhere.

Instructor(s): R. Vargas     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 20104, CRES 20104, SOSC 25100, ENST 20104, SOCI 30104, GEOG 32700, SOCI 20104, GEOG 22700

ARCH 20150. Sustainable Urban Development. 100 Units.

The course covers concepts and methods of sustainable urbanism, livable cities, resiliency, and smart growth principles from a social, environmental and economic perspective. In this course we examine how the development in and of cities - in the US and around the world - can be sustainable, especially given predictions of a future characterized by increasing environmental and social volatility. We begin by critiquing definitions of sustainability. The fundamental orientation of the course will be understanding cities as complex socio-natural systems, and so we will look at approaches to sustainability grouped around several of the most important component systems: climate, energy, transportation, and water. With the understanding that sustainability has no meaning if it excludes human life, perspectives from both the social sciences and humanities are woven throughout: stewardship and environmental ethics are as important as technological solutions and policy measures.

Instructor(s): Winter: Staff, Spring: Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Note(s): ENST 21201 and 20150 are required of students who are majoring in Environmental and Urban Studies and may be taken in any order.
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 20150, GLST 20150, ENST 20150, CEGU 20150

ARCH 20160. Cities on Screen. 100 Units.

How do the movies shape our collective imagination about cities? Why do we so often turn to them for visions of disaster and dystopia, on the one hand, or a futuristic utopia on the other? How has film responded to cities in the past, and how can it help investigate our present urban condition? How can film be understood as a tool for exploring what a city is? In this seminar, we will watch and discuss feature films in which the built environment or urban issues play important roles. Students will improve their film literacy -- learning not just what a film does but how it does it -- and understand applications for film in the analysis of social, spatial, temporal, and immersive phenomena, as well as how it can help inspire and communicate design more effectively.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 20160, ENST 20160

ARCH 20170. Pandemics, Urban Space, and Public Life. 100 Units.

Much of the cultural vibrance, economic strength, and social innovation that characterizes cities can be credited to their density. Put simply, cities bring people together, and togetherness allows for complex and fruitful exchange. But togetherness also brings risks, notably from infectious disease. A pandemic feeds on propinquity. "Social distance," while a short-term public health imperative, is antithetical to the very idea of the urban. In this seminar, we will explore these competing tensions in light of current and past disease outbreaks in urban settings. Drawing on a range of texts from history, design theory, sociology, and anthropology, as well as cultural artifacts like film, graphic memoir, and photography, we will engage questions like: How are the risks of contagion balanced with the benefits of density? How are such risks distributed throughout society? What creative responses have architects, urban designers, and planners brought to this challenge? Most importantly, how can we respond constructively to the challenge of pandemic to create cities where the benefits of togetherness are maximized, perhaps even improved on compared with the pre-outbreak condition? Students will have the opportunity to propose design or policy interventions to help their own communities respond to the coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis, return to a vibrant post-pandemic life, and prepare for the pandemics of the future.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 20170, ENST 20170, PBPL 20170, HLTH 20170, CEGU 20170

ARCH 20180. Writing the City. 100 Units.

How do great writers convey sense-of-place in their writing? What are the best ways to communicate scientific and social complexity in an engaging, accessible way? How can we combine academic rigor with journalistic verve and literary creativity to drive the public conversation about urgent environmental and urban issues? These are just some of the questions explored in WRITING THE CITY, an intensive course dedicated to honing our skills of verbal communication about issues related to the built and natural environments. Students will research, outline, draft, revise, and ultimately produce a well-crafted piece of journalistic writing for publication in the program's new annual magazine, Expositions. Throughout the quarter we will engage intensely with a range of authors of place-based writing exploring various literary and journalistic techniques, narrative devices, rhetorical ​approaches, and stylistic strategies.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): At least one ENST, GEOG, or ARCH course; or one PBPL, ARTH, ANTH, or SOCI course with an urban focus; or instructor permission. Please contact ehc@uchicago.edu with questions.
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 20180, CEGU 20180

ARCH 20200. Urban Dramas: Theater, Performance and the City. 100 Units.

How do urban landscapes, economies, collectives and communities influence the ecology of artistic practice? How does art - and theatre in particular - represent and reflect the eccentricities, anxieties and exultations of urban experience? In this course, we will examine the mutually constitutive relationship between theatre and the city through different perspectives, methodologies and approaches. We will consider how the city is represented in a range of dramatic works including Aristophanes' The Birds, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Ramu Ramanathan's Cotton 56, Polyester 84, and Anne Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. We will read these plays in conjunction with critical writings that illustrate the ways in which changing urban landscapes reshape the contours of theatre practice along economic, demographic and infrastructural lines. These include the scholarship of Marvin Carlson, Loren Kruger, Michael McKinnie, and Stanton B. Garner, among others. The course requires students to engage with the course themes both intellectually and experientially, through a dedicated set of readings and assignments that probe the entanglements between theatre and city life within the specific Chicago context. Students will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the theatre culture of Chicago, and conduct ethnographic research on existing theatre spaces in the city.

Instructor(s): S. Sastry     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 20200

ARCH 20252. Urban Innovation: Cultural Place Making and Scenescapes. 100 Units.

Activists from Balzac, Jane Jacobs, and others today seek to change the world using the arts. Ignored by most social science theories, these new cultural initiatives and policies are increasing globally. Urban planning and architecture policies, walking and parades, posters and demonstrations, new coffee shops and storefront churches reinforce selective development of specific cities and neighborhoods. These transform our everyday social environments into new types of scenes. They factor into crucial decisions, about where to work, to open a business, to found a political activist group, to live, what political causes to support, and more. The course reviews new case studies and comparative analyses from China to Chicago to Poland that detail these processes. Students are encouraged to explore one type of project.

Instructor(s): T. Clark     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 20252, SOCI 30252, SOCI 20252

ARCH 20506. Cities, Space, Power: Introduction to urban social science. 100 Units.

This lecture course provides a broad, multidisciplinary introduction to the study of urbanization in the social sciences. The course surveys a broad range of research traditions from across the social sciences, as well as the work of urban planners, architects, and environmental scientists. Topics include: theoretical conceptualizations of the city and urbanization; methods of urban studies; the politics of urban knowledges; the historical geographies of capitalist urbanization; political strategies to shape and reshape the built and unbuilt environment; cities and planetary ecological transformation; post-1970s patterns and pathways of urban restructuring; and struggles for the right to the city.

Instructor(s): N. Brenner     Terms Offered: Winter. Not offered in 2023-2024 academic year.
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 30506, HIPS 20506, CEGU 20506, PLSC 30506, PLSC 20506, CCCT 30506, SOCI 30506, KNOW 30506, ENST 20506, CHST 20506, SOCI 20506

ARCH 20521. Sociology of urban planning: cities, territories, environments. 100 Units.

This course provides a high-intensity introduction to the sociology of urban planning practice under modern capitalism. Building upon urban sociology, planning theory and history as well as urban social science and environmental studies, we explore the emergence, development and continual transformation of urban planning in relation to changing configurations of capitalist urbanization, modern state power, sociopolitical insurgency and environmental crisis. Following an initial exploration of divergent conceptualizations of "planning" and "urbanization," we investigate the changing sites and targets of planning; struggles regarding the instruments, goals and constituencies of planning; the contradictory connections between planning and diverse configurations of power in modern society (including class, race, gender and sexuality); and the possibility that new forms of planning might help produce more socially just and environmentally sane forms of urbanization in the future.

Instructor(s): N. Brenner     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 20521, GEOG 20521, KNOW 30521, CHST 20521, PPHA 30521, SOCI 30521, SOCI 20521, PLSC 30521, ENST 20521, CEGU 20521, PLSC 20521

ARCH 20685. Material Narratives. 100 Units.

This studio course explores architecture and design-thinking through the lens of materials. We will examine the physical, historical, social, environmental, aesthetic, and emotional properties of materials, investigate design strategies used to realize materiality in buildings, and dive deeper into understanding the material motivations of a building's author. Course topics are organized thematically by type of material: stone/masonry, wood/steel, concrete, glass, and innovations in material technology. We will turn input to output through a series of creative, hands-on exercises designed to introduce the concepts of scale, aggregation, manipulation, abstraction, and representation. Design studies will build off each other to culminate in a final architectural project-the materialization of a narrative from a poem, a film, a song, a memory… Texts, case studies, discussions, and trips will underpin and enrich the studio work.

Instructor(s): S. Park     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting February 12, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 20685, CHST 20685

ARCH 20704. Traveling Studio: From Detail to City at Taliesin. 100 Units.

The course is designed to immerse students in architectural drawing and making at a site of prolific drawing and making past, in a remarkable environment both natural and built. Working both individually and together, we will use our surroundings at Taliesin to tackle five short projects, increasing in scale, from the tiniest architectural details up through consideration of city and region. As part of the latter portion of the course, we will also consider the Driftless region of Wisconsin specifically, and issues facing this unique rural area in 2023, including environmental challenges, questions of housing, and rural foodways. Typical days will include studio time in the Hillside studio, ample exploration of the Taliesin grounds both programmed and free, conversations with guests familiar with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and others who spent time at Taliesin, excursions across the Driftless region (including additional buildings designed by Wright and others close to him), and a modest amount of work helping to maintain the Taliesin site.

Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 20704, ARTH 30704, ARTH 20704, ENST 20704

ARCH 21300. (Re)Branding the Balkan City: Comtemp. Belgrade/Sarajevo/Zagreb. 100 Units.

The course uses an urban studies lens to explore the complex history, infrastructure and transformations of cities, mainly the capitals of today's Serbia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Croatia. There is a particular need to survey this region and feed the newfound interest in it, mainly because Yugoslav architecture embodied one of the great political experiments of the modern era. Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnography of the city, we consider processes of urban destruction and renewal, practices of branding spaces and identities, urban life as praxis, art and design movements, film, music, food, architectural histories and styles, metropolitan citizenship, and the broader politics of space. The course is complemented by cultural and historical media, guest speakers, and virtual tours. One of them is a tour through the 2018 show at MoMA "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980" a project curated with the goal to find a place for Yugoslav Modernism in the architectural canon. Classes are held in English. No knowledge of South Slavic languages is required.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 21301, BCSN 31303, BCSN 21300, REES 31303, HIST 24008, REES 21300, ARTH 21333, ARTH 31333

ARCH 22105. Sex and Gender in The City. 100 Units.

This course is designed to introduce students to some of the key concerns at the intersection of gender studies and urban studies. In this course, we will take gender relations and sexuality as our primary concern and as a constitutive aspect of social relations that vitally shape cities and urban life. We will examine how gender is inscribed in city landscapes, how it is lived and embodied in relation to race, class, and sexuality, and how it is (re)produced through violence, inequality, and resistance. Over the course of the quarter, we will draw on an interdisciplinary scholarship that approaches the central question of how and why thinking about urban life in relation to gender and sex matters.

Instructor(s): Sneha Annavarapu     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 22105, GNSE 12105, SOCI 28088, ENST 12105

ARCH 22123. Ecopoetics: Literature and Ecology. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to recent debates in the environmental humanities and simultaneously to a range of creative responses across fiction, documentary, poetry, and the visual arts spurred by the effects of what has come to be called the Anthropocene epoch (despite substantive challenges to the term that we will address)-in a period of perceived grave environmental crisis. Students will be asked to respond critically to the works at hand, but also to conduct their own research and on-site fieldwork in Chicago on an environmental issue of their choosing. Students must be available for several field trips. (20th/21st) Undergraduates must email Prof. Jennifer Scappettone for consent.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 22123, ENGL 32123, ARTH 32123, CEGU 22123

ARCH 22211. Riding about the South Side. 100 Units.

This course is based on bicycling through the South Side neighborhoods surrounding the University of Chicago. There will be some readings, but the primary input will be from riding-from seeing things at street level and speaking with people who are committed to living in places that often have been abandoned by others. We can read and theorize about the community surrounding us, but the premise in this class is that our work should begin with experience in that world, with direct contact and in conversation. My approach in this class is less to teach than to lead you to where things are waiting to be learned and to people who can teach you about their world better than I. Some of the themes we will cover include land rights and exploitation, architecture, town planning, placemaking, urban farming and ecology, sustainability, grass roots organization, labor rights and exploitation, immigration, social work, and street art. Each ride is organized around a set of key concerns and includes a conversation with a local insider who can help us better understand them.

Instructor(s): William Nickell     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 22211, CEGU 22211, ENST 22211, KNOW 22211

ARCH 22611. Paris from Victor Hugo to the Liberation, c. 1830-1950. 100 Units.

Starting with the grim and dysfunctional city described in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," the course will examine the history of Paris over the period in which it became viewed as the city par excellence of urban modernity through to the testing times of Nazi occupation and then liberation (c. 1830-1950). As well as focussing on architecture and the built environment, we will examine the political, social, and especially cultural history of the city. A particular feature of the course will be representations of the city-literary (Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Zola, etc.) and artistic (impressionism and postimpressionism, cubism, surrealism). We will also examine the city's own view of itself through the prism of successive world fairs (expositions universelles).

Instructor(s): C. Jones     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Students taking FREN 22620/32620 must read texts in French.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32611, HIST 22611, FREN 22620, FREN 32620, ENST 22611

ARCH 22909. People in Motion: Rethinking Transit in Chicago and Beyond. 100 Units.

How do you get from A to B? Within and between today's urbanized areas, that seemingly simple question has become one of the most fraught and intractable problems. This course seeks to address questions about public transit across scales, from pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure at the level of individual intersections and blocks up to regional train networks and beyond. Like other design studio courses, the class will be project-based, and will ask students to develop a wide understanding of existing systems, but also to learn through creative design projects that expand their sense of what's possible. After working together to understand many existing transit solutions across different scales, to come to terms with and document Chicago's transit landscape, and to dream speculatively about untested transit possibilities both low- and high-tech, students will focus on building a portfolio of creative suggestions for their respective "clients" (e.g., the University of Chicago, the 4th Ward Alderman). Alongside this project work, assigned readings and explorations around Chicago will immerse students in the culture and philosophy of moving people and things, across different moments past, present and future.

Instructor(s): E. Carver, L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Third or fourth-year standing
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST/CEGU 4th year Capstone requirement. While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting November 6, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 22909, ENST 22900, CHST 22900, BPRO 22900, CEGU 22900

ARCH 23011. The Japanese House Question. 100 Units.

This studio course in architecture focuses on the 'Japanese house' and the 'Japanese empty house' as main objects of investigation.We will study the 'Japanese house'-arguably the most prolific architectural typology in modern and contemporary Japan, and specifically a small group of 'Japanese empty houses' that we will select from Japan's 'bank' of empty houses, which currently includes about ten million. Each student will choose an existing empty house in Tokyo area and develop a transformation scheme. The 'Japanese house' and the 'Japanese empty house' will be observed, analyzed, represented, and finally re-interpreted by means of architectural design.

Instructor(s): E. Golani Solomon     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting November 6, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 23011

ARCH 23401. Revision, Expression & Portfolio Design. 100 Units.

This studio course, similar to a "senior seminar" in other disciplines, serves five purposes: (1) to allow students to pick up a few elements (drawings, models, collages, visual and place-based research, etc.) they've produced in other ARCH studio courses and spend more time refining them, outside the broader demands of a thematic studio class, (2) to acquaint students with advanced skills in expression and representation related to the revision and refinement of these elements, based on student interest and needs, (3) to assist students in the development of a portfolio of studio work, either toward application for graduate school or simply to have for themselves, and in systems to organize projects and revisions, (4) to add to students' typographic and graphic design skillsets, primarily using the Adobe Creative Suite, as part of the portfolio process, and (5) to practice and hone communication and writing skills related to discussing architectural projects. While there will be a modest set of skills-based exercises each week, to help structure the studio, most of the work for this class will be students' own project revisions and portfolios, and most of class time will be spent sharing and refining both.

Instructor(s): L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Priority for this "senior studio" course will be given to third and fourth years who've taken at least two other ARCH studio classes already. Students who have not already taken "Skills & Processes for Architecture and Urban Design" may be asked to consult some of the problem sets from that class ahead of this one, to ensure a baseline upon which this class will build. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 23401, CEGU 23401, ENST 23401

ARCH 23517. Introduction to Critical Spatial Media: Visualizing Urban, Environmental, and Planetary Change. 100 Units.

This course introduces critical theories and techniques for visualizing interconnected transformations of urban, environmental, and planetary systems amidst the pressures of climate change, urbanization, and global economies of capitalism. Weekly lectures will introduce major themes and theoretical debates, paired with hands-on lab tutorials exploring a selection of methods in conventional and experimental geographic visualization. Thematically, the course will be organized around critical interpretations of the Anthropocene, a concept designating the epoch in which anthropogenic activities are recognized as the dominant force of planetary climatic and ecological change. We will present these interpretations through modules structured around different conceptual paradigms and alternative epochal designations (e.g. the Urbanocene, the Capitalocene, the Plantationocene). Through weekly lab exercises and a final, synthetic project, the course will move from critically analyzing prevalent theoretical frameworks, geospatial data, and associated visualization techniques to creatively visualizing critical alternatives. Students will learn how to construct visual narratives through a variety of spatial media (e.g. maps, diagrams, visual timelines), scales (e.g. bodies, neighborhoods, landscapes, the planetary), and techniques/platforms (e.g. GIS, web mapping, basic programming language tools, and vector/raster visualization programs).

Instructor(s): Alexander Arroyo, Grga Basic, Sol Kim     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 23517, MAAD 13517, CEGU 23517, ARTV 20665

ARCH 23835. Social Theory of the City. 100 Units.

This seminar explores various historical, sociological and anthropological theories of cities. The course analyzes major theoretical frameworks concerned with urban forms, institutions and experience as well as particular instances of city development from pre-modern to contemporary periods. The seminar will consist of initial orienting lectures, discussion of selected texts concerned with social theories of the city, and presentation of research projects by class participants.

Instructor(s): Alan L. Kolata
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the Paris Program
Note(s): Undergraduates only
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 23825, ENST 23825

ARCH 24190. Imagining Chicago's Common Buildings. 100 Units.

This course is an architectural studio based in the common residential buildings of Chicago and the city's built environment. While design projects and architectural skills will be the focus of the course, it will also incorporate readings, a small amount of writing, some social and geographical history, and several explorations around Chicago. The studio will: (1) give students interested in pursuing architecture or the study of cities experience with a studio course and some skills related to architectural thinking, (2) acquaint students intimately with Chicago's common residential buildings and built fabric, and (3) situate all this within a context of social thought about residential architecture, common buildings, housing, and the city. This course is part of the College Course Cluster program: Urban Design.

Instructor(s): L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.) Please also note that this course will include several field trips around Chicago during class time; if you have any questions or concerns about that, please share them in the consent form when you complete it.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20210, GEOG 24190, CHST 24190, ARTH 24190, CEGU 24190, ENST 24190, AMER 24190

ARCH 24191. City Imagined, City Observed. 100 Units.

This urban design studio course takes two distinct notions of the city as its starting point: grand, imaginative plans -- utopian, unbuilt, semi-realized, real... both as aesthetic objects, and as ideas -- and how the minute flows of day-to-day life, up from the smallest scale, enter into dialogue with little built and lived details, intended or not. Drawing on both Chicago and other places (not just urban) that individual students know well, we will dream both big and small, search both present and past, and tap precisely into both what we dream and what we experience... seeking not to dictate what the city will be, but to use these different modes of understanding to expand our sense of what a city can be. Necessarily, we'll grapple with difficult contradictions cities pose, our most central personal assumptions about spaces and places, and with questions of how, especially in present-day capitalism, cities change. We take as given the inevitable gap between how places actually evolve and how, perhaps, they could, and use that gap as a site for the imagination to step in, while also confronting the hubris of imagining cities real. The studio work will proceed in three stages: individually developing an alternate vision for a place you know well, at a historical moment of your choice... then breaking each others' plans... and finally using real observations and factors (and even spontaneous impulse) to complicate and rebuild your vision into something lovelier.

Instructor(s): L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Consent is required to enroll in this class. Priority will be given to students who have completed ARTH 24190.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 24191, CEGU 24191, AMER 24191, CHST 24191, ENST 24191, ARTV 20205, ARTH 24191

ARCH 24196. Second Nature: New Models for the Chicago Park District. 100 Units.

The Chicago Park District seems to preserve "first nature" within the metropolitan field. But the motive for establishing this sovereign territory was hardly natural. Today, cultural change raises questions about the significance and operation of this immense network of civic spaces. What opportunities emerge as we rethink them? While this design studio focuses on the development of new model parks for Chicago, it can support students coming from a broad range of disciplines. Texts, seminar discussions, and field trips will complement and nourish the development of architectural proposals.

Instructor(s): A. Schachman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Consent only
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. Please also note that architecture studio courses comprise one 80-minute meeting and one 170-minute meeting per week. Scroll down to see timing.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 24196, ENST 24196, CEGU 24196, ARTV 20206, ARTH 24196

ARCH 24199. The Life of Buildings. 100 Units.

This course will examine the life of buildings-- how they perform, evolve, and adapt over time. How do particular design decisions influence human experience and behavior? Which parts of the building align with its intended use and what are surprising outcomes or changes? These questions aim to provide students with a deeper understanding of the built environment and the series of decisions that shaped them. Through readings, surveys, site visits, and conversations with architects and building users, we will measure and examine the spaces around us. Students will begin with a series of short analysis and design exercises and create short films, projective collages and diagrams, and architectural concept models. Building on our collective observations, research, and analysis, we will then finish with a final project where we respond to an existing building and propose an alternate life path. The format of the course is part-seminar, part-studio that aims to equip students with practical tools and strategies needed to shape our world and account for the long-term impact of design.

Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 24199, ARTH 24199, CHST 24199

ARCH 24220. Anxious Spaces. 100 Units.

This course explores built (architectural), filmic, and narrative spaces that disturb our bearings, un-situate us, and defy neurotypical cognition. In the sense that "angst" is a mode that can be understood as both stalling and generative, we analyze spaces and representations of spaces such as corridors, attics, basements, canals, viaducts, labyrinths, forests, ruins, etc., spaces that are 'felt' as estranging, foreboding, in short, anxiety-provoking, in order to understand why-despite or because these topoi are hostile-they are produced, reproduced, and craved. We will pay special attention to abject spaces of racial and sexual exclusivity, sites of spoliation, and of memory and erasure. Among our primary texts are films by Kubrick, Tarkovksy, and Antonioni, and Chytilová, short fiction by Borges, Kafka, Nabokov, and selections from the philosophical/theoretical writings of Bachelard, Deleuze & Guattari, Debord, Foucault, Kracauer, and the edited volume, Mapping Desire, Geographies of Sexuality.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 24220, GNSE 34220, REES 24220, REES 34220

ARCH 24270. Children & Architecture. 100 Units.

Many who pursue architecture do so initially out of a childlike fascination with buildings, places and worlds. Curiosity and limited understanding naturally provide children with an exploratory relationship to the built environments they traverse, and children also often show a heightened sense of wonder -- heightened emotions of all kinds -- as that relationship plays out. (This can be positive and formative, or scary and traumatic.) And yet, many of the adults who make choices about the worlds we inhabit think mostly of adults, and as adults, in doing so. This architecture studio course investigates the built world through a child's eyes, across different moments in history, including our own. Readings and seminar discussions will range from playgrounds to blocks, preschools to family relations, swimming pools and sandcastles to the very construction of childhood as an idea. We will explore Chicago, and meet with builders of all ages, likely culminating in designing (and potentially building) a real playground space. While previous experience with architectural skills is not necessary to excel in this course, childlike curiosity is required.

Instructor(s): L. Joyner     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting February 12, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Note(s): The course is visiting the City Museum in St. Louis (a multi-story, artist-built playground for children and adults that defies description) for one day in advance of the course.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20029, ENST 24270, MAAD 24270, ARTH 24270, CHST 24270

ARCH 24651. Latest Experiments in Architectural History. 100 Units.

This seminar invites students to examine recent scholarly experiments in architectural history. Participants will read and discuss a corpus of books published in the last five years. Each week, we will take a deep dive into a single publication by synthesizing its argument, unpacking its structure, and demonstrating its potential limits. In-class activities will catalyze dialogue and debate on the readings as well as highlight resonances across assigned books. By the end of the quarter, students will have developed transversal views of contemporary practices in architectural history and heightened their senses of methodological self-awareness.

Instructor(s): J. Huet     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34651, ARTH 24651

ARCH 24660. Urban Geography. 100 Units.

This course examines the spatial organization and current restructuring of modern cities in light of the economic, social, cultural, and political forces that shape them. It explores the systematic interactions between social process and physical system. We cover basic concepts of urbanism and urbanization, systems of cities urban growth, migration, centralization and decentralization, land-use dynamics, physical geography, urban morphology, and planning. Field trip in Chicago region required. This course is part of the College Course Cluster, Urban Design.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. This course offered in even years.
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24660, CEGU 34660, ENST 24660

ARCH 24706. Edo/Tokyo: Society and the City in Japan. 100 Units.

This course explores the history of one of the world's largest cities from its origins as the castle town of the Tokugawa shoguns in the early seventeenth century, to its transformation into a national capital and imperial center, and concludes in the postwar era as Tokyo emerged from the ashes of World War II to become a center of global capital and culture. Our focus will be on the complex and evolving interactions between the natural and built environments of the city and politics, culture, and social relations.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34706, CRES 24706, HIST 24706, CRES 34706, EALC 24706, HIST 34706, ENST 24706

ARCH 25012. Undergraduate research seminar: Chicago Urban Morphology. 100 Units.

This seminar is open to Seniors and Juniors, particularly for but not necessarily limited to those in the fields of geography, environmental science, and urban studies. It is designed for students to undertake original research on a topic of their own choosing within the broad scope of Chicago's built environment. Following a brief reading course in the theoretical literature of urban morphology, each student will identify and select a topic of interest to research using Chicago sources, with the objective of a formal written research paper. Discussions will center around formulating research questions, theoretical underpinnings, suitable methodology, modes of writing, appropriate presentation of evidence, and effective illustration. Sessions will combine open discussion with a rotating series of periodic individual progress reports to the group, reflecting an interesting diversity of topics and mutual support in gaining experience in the research process.

Instructor(s): Michael Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 25012, GEOG 25012, PBPL 25012, ENST 25012, CHST 25012, SOCI 20552

ARCH 25119. Architecture and Colonialism in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. 100 Units.

This seminar invites students to examine the intersections of colonialism with architecture in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Throughout the semester, we will discuss the designs of architects working in the region (Le Corbusier, Fernand Pouillon, Shadrach Woods, etc.) and concepts defining colonialism as a design project (segregation, repression, primitivism, etc.). We will also pay particular attention to modes of opposition pursued by residents and their historical impact toward the region's decolonization. Moments of heightened historical consequence, such as the strategic use of selected architectural spaces by independentist guerrillas, will be thoroughly discussed. The class will progress through a chronological scope, from Orientalism as a 19th century phenomenon to the enmeshment of modernism with colonialism in the 20th century. We will conclude with the emergence of postcolonial modernities.

Instructor(s): Jacobé Huet      Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 35119, RDIN 35119, ARTH 25119, RDIN 25119

ARCH 26005. Cities by Design. 100 Units.

This course examines the theory and practice of city design-how, throughout history, people have sought to mold and shape cities in pre-determined ways. The form of the city is the result of myriad factors, but in this course we will hone in on the purposeful act of designing cities according to normative thinking-ideas about how cities ought to be. Using examples from all time periods and places around the globe, we will examine how cities are purposefully designed and what impact those designs have had. Where and when has city design been successful, and where has it resulted in more harm than good?

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 26005, GEOG 26005, PBPL 26005

ARCH 26008. Historic Preservation Studio. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the preservation of the built environment. What are the benefits of preserving historic resources? Students will conduct studies of historic buildings in Chicago, exploring their cultural significance and impact on neighborhoods, and applying preservation tools and methods to formulate policies to advance preservation goals. We will also debate preservation's role in addressing climate change and its role in advancing social goals, such as maintaining neighborhood diversity. Through readings, archival research, mapping, field visits, and interaction with professionals in the field, we will consider the possibilities of leveraging historic preservation to advance social, economic, and environmental goals.

Instructor(s): Emily Talen     Terms Offered: Not offered in 2023-2024 academic year.
Equivalent Course(s): GEOG 36008, ENST 26008, CHST 26008

ARCH 26075. South Asian Sensoriums. 100 Units.

What is a 'sense'? How do we attune, coordinate, and interpret our senses and the information that we receive through them? How do we structure and shape the world around us for and through the senses? We will address these questions by diving into the multi-sensory worlds of South Asia-a region that includes the present states of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka-and learning how peoples of the region have theorized and employed the senses to understand and shape their aesthetic, social, and religious worlds. We will taste spices, smell fragrances, listen to music and street sounds, 'visit' temples, mosques, and museums, read literary, philosophical, and religious texts, and view works of visual and sculptural art in order to better understand which aspects of sensory experience are indeed 'universal' and which are conditioned by history and culture.

Instructor(s): Tyler Williams     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SIGN 26075, SALC 26075

ARCH 26100. Roots of the Modern American City. 100 Units.

This course traces the economic, social, and physical development of the city in North America from pre-European times to the mid-twentieth century. We emphasize evolving regional urban systems, the changing spatial organization of people and land use in urban areas, and the developing distinctiveness of American urban landscapes. All-day Illinois field trip required. This course is part of the College Course Cluster, Urban Design.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered 2021-22
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. This course offered in odd years.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 26100, CEGU 36100, CHST 26100, HIST 28900, CEGU 26100, HIST 38900

ARCH 26280. Site-Based Practice: Choreographing The Smart Museum. 100 Units.

This course gives students the unique opportunity to create a collaborative, site-based work that culminates in a final performance at UChicago's Smart Museum of Art. Using embodied research methods that respond to site through moving, sensing, and listening, we'll explore the relationship between the ephemerality of movement and the materiality of bodies and place, and consider how the site-based contexts for dance shift how it is perceived, experienced, and valued. Our quarter-long creation process will begin with a tour of the Smart Museum, guided by curators and members of the Public Practice team, that will provide context to the museum's exhibitions, programming, and its relationship to geography and community. Assigned readings, viewings, and conversations with guest artists will delve into the relationship between dance and the sites where it happens, including museums-from the material relationship between bodies, objects, and architecture to the digital flows of choreography online.

Instructor(s): J. Rhoads     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 30027, TAPS 26280, CHST 26280, TAPS 36280, ARTV 20027

ARCH 26322. A History of Public Spaces in Mexico, 1520-2020. 100 Units.

Streets and plazas have been sites in which much of Mexican history has been fought, forged, and even performed. This course examines the history of public spaces in Mexico since the Spanish Conquest. By gauging the degree to which these sites were truly open to the public, it addresses questions of social exclusion, resistance, and adaptability. The course traces more than the role and evolution of built sites. It also considers the individuals and groups that helped to define these places. This allows us to read street vendors, prostitutes, students, rioters, and the "prole" as central historical actors. Through case studies and primary sources, we will examine palpable examples of how European colonization, various forms of state building, and more recent neoliberal reforms have transformed ordinary Mexicans and their public spaces.

Instructor(s): C. Rocha     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 26322, ENST 26322, LACS 25322

ARCH 26616. Tracing Time. 100 Units.

Tracing Time is a hybrid seminar and studio. The first portion of the course will invite students to engage with a curated selection of techniques for representing time as a broad category of concerns, containing a wide range of nuanced conceptual frameworks and constructs: subjective time, objective time, proper time, coordinate time, sidereal time, emergent time, encoding time, relativistic time, time dilation, reaction time, spacetime, etc. The second portion of the course will invite students to develop their own models, visualizations, and representations of time or temporal phenomenon as a support for considering time as a factor of change in relation to their own research or interest in a particular concern or context, or where time is bound to physical, psychological, ecological, climatic, biological, geological, economic, historical, geographic, or other entangled processes. This course requires no preparation and is therefore open to students from any discipline who share a general interest in urban design, architecture and the arts or who specifically wish to develop a deeper understanding of drawings, models, photographs, video and other graphic mediums as material supports for inquiry.

Instructor(s): A. Schachman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 26616, ARTH 36616, CHST 26616

ARCH 27019. Holocaust Object. 100 Units.

In this course, we explore various ontological and representational modes of the Holocaust material object world as it was represented during World War II. Then, we interrogate the post-Holocaust artifacts and material remnants, as they are displayed, curated, controlled, and narrated in the memorial sites and museums of former ghettos and extermination and concentration camps. These sites which-once the locations of genocide-are now places of remembrance, the (post)human, and material remnants also serve educational purposes. Therefore, we study the ways in which this material world, ranging from infrastructure to detritus, has been subjected to two, often conflicting, tasks of representation and preservation, which we view through a prism of authenticity. In order to study representation, we critically engage a textual and visual reading of museum narrations and fiction writings; to tackle the demands of preservation, we apply a neo-materialist approach. Of special interest are survivors' testimonies as appended to the artifacts they donated. The course will also equip you with salient critical tools for future creative research in Holocaust studies.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 23910, REES 27019, HIST 23413, JWSC 29500, HIST 33413, ANTH 35035, REES 37019

ARCH 27506. Changing America in the Last 100 Years. 100 Units.

This course examines the economic and social forces that have transformed the critical character and performance of the major regions of the United States since the 1920s, and how the interactions between regions has profoundly shifted. The course completes the historical sweep of American geographical development following on from the Autumn course, Historical Geography of the United States, but can be taken as an independent course. Emphasized are the ways in which socio-cultural, technological and economic changes have played out differently across continental space, and produced variable environmental consequences. An all-day field trip in the Chicago region visits sites that reflect some of the larger forces at work at the intra-regional scale.

Instructor(s): Michael Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 22101, HIST 37506, HIST 27506, CEGU 22101, GEOG 32101, CHST 22101

ARCH 27522. Experimental Futures: Re-figurations of Human/Environment Relationships. 100 Units.

The naming of the current era after the human-Anthropocene-is widely criticized. Scholars such as Donna Haraway bemoan the emphasis on the human being and its control over earthly matters at a moment when non-human entanglements with the world are simultaneously overlooked. Other thinkers point out that the planetary changes of the Anthropocene have occurred mainly due to capitalism and industrialization. In the course of these debates, the role of the human and the understanding of the human as part of the Earth's ecosystem is discussed again and again. Especially in the arts and design, new figurations of the human and a future outside anthropocentrism are being developed. This course follows fundamental questions around the emergence of this discourse: Which tropes, materials, and concepts do we collectively use to imagine our future? Who gets to participate in these imaginaries and who is thereby excluded? What role do the arts and design play in this process? In this class, students will gain understanding of an emerging area of interdisciplinary research that reframes the category of the "human" in face of contemporary environmental challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity. Students will become familiar with concepts and theories associated with post-humanism, new materialisms, and environmental humanities and use them to reflect on examples from architecture, design, and the arts.

Instructor(s): Desiree Foerster     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 27522, MAAD 27522

ARCH 28202. Introduction to Geocomputation. 100 Units.

This course investigates the theory and practice of infrastructure and computational approaches in Geographic Information Science. Geocomputation is introduced as a multidisciplinary systems paradigm necessary for solving complex spatial problems and facilitating new understandings. Students will learn about the elements of spatial algorithms and data structures, geospatial topologies, spatial data queries, the basics of geodatabase architecture and design, and their implementation in open source software, such as R or Python.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered 2023-24
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 28100, GISC 38100

ARCH 28402. Spatial Analysis Methods in Geographic Information Systems. 100 Units.

This course provides an overview of methods of spatial analysis and their implementation in geographic information systems. These methods deal with the retrieval, storage, manipulation and transformation of spatial data to create new knowledge. Examples are spatial join operations, spatial overlay, buffering, measuring accessibility, network analysis and raster operations. The fundamental principles behind the methods are covered as well as their application to real-life problems using open source software such as QGIS.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered 2023-24
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 38200, GISC 28200

ARCH 28602. Topics in Geographic Information Science. 100 Units.

This advanced course extends and connects both foundational and functional concepts in Geographic Information Science. Topics will vary, but include GIS customization, enterprise GIS, web GIS, and advanced visualization and analytic techniques. In addition to an in-depth coverage of the foundational topics, students will be introduced to their implementation in open source software environments through advanced programming and scripting languages.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered 2023-24
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 28300, GISC 38300

ARCH 28702. Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction and overview of how spatial thinking is translated into specific methods to handle geographic information and the statistical analysis of such information. This is not a course to learn a specific GIS software program, but the goal is to learn how to think about spatial aspects of research questions, as they pertain to how the data are collected, organized and transformed, and how these spatial aspects affect statistical methods. The focus is on research questions relevant in the social sciences, which inspires the selection of the particular methods that are covered. Examples include spatial data integration (spatial join), transformations between different spatial scales (overlay), the computation of "spatial" variables (distance, buffer, shortest path), geovisualization, visual analytics, and the assessment of spatial autocorrelation (the lack of independence among spatial variables). The methods will be illustrated by means of open source software such as QGIS and R.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Spring Summer. Offered 2023-24
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20283, PPHA 38712, ENST 28702, CEGU 28702, SOCI 30283, GISC 28702, GISC 38702

ARCH 28800. History of Cartography. 100 Units.

This course offers a grand overview of the key developments in mapmaking throughout history worldwide, from pre-literate cartography to the modern interactive digital environment. It looks at the producers, their audience, the technologies and artistic systems used, and the human and global contexts in which they developed. The course also draws on the extensive map collections of Regenstein Library.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Spring 2023-24
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 38800, GISC 28800, CHST 28800

ARCH 28925. Health Impacts of Transportation Policies. 100 Units.

Governments invest in transport infrastructure because it encourages economic growth and mobility of people and goods, which have direct and indirect benefits to health. Yet, an excessive reliance on motorized modes of transport harms population health, the environment, and social well-being. The impact on population health is substantial: Globally, road traffic crashes kill over 1.3 million annually. Air pollution, to which transport is an important contributor, kills another 3.2 million people. Motorized modes of transport are also an important contributor to sedentary lifestyles. Physical inactivity is estimated to cause 3.2 million deaths every year, globally. This course will introduce students to thinking about transportation as a technological system that affects human health and well-being through intended and unintended mechanisms. The course will examine the complex relationship between transportation, land use, urban form, and geography, and explore how decisions in other sectors affect transportation systems, and how these in turn affect human health. Students will learn to recognize how the system level properties of a range of transportation systems (such as limited-access highways, urban mass transit, inter-city rail) affect human health.

Instructor(s): Bhalla, Kavi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 28925, ENST 28925, PBPL 28925

ARCH 29506. Home and Empire: From Little House on the Prairie to Refugee Camps. 100 Units.

What can living rooms tell us about Empires? What did it mean to be a housewife in an imperial society? This course answers these and other questions by exploring the relationship between domesticity and imperialism over the past three hundred years. We will explore how Catholic Native Potawatomi women decorated their homes in the early 18th century, how black South African maids interacted with white employers during apartheid, and how young male refugees in contemporary France try to make homes in the land of their former colonial ruler. Through this work students will unpack the racial, gendered, spatial, and political logics of imperial rule. This course is organized around three thematic phases: conquest and expansion, rule and resistance, and decolonization. After introducing theoretical approaches to the study of domesticity and imperialism, we will use case studies from across the globe to work through these thematic groups. We will discuss cases from North America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Europe. By combining secondary literature with films, memoirs, domestic objects, and visual sources we will evaluate the intersections of imperialism and home-life. Students will ultimately conduct a final research project on a topic of their choosing to explore this courses' themes in depth. Students will work to challenge notions of home as an idyllic or a historical space and see the power and struggles that took place within walls.

Instructor(s): Greg Valdespino     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts as a Concepts Course for GNSE majors
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 23128, CRES 23128, HIST 29506

ARCH 29600. Doing Art History. 100 Units.

This course has two main objectives: to explore major texts and methodological approaches within the discipline of art history and to develop art historical research and argumentation skills. The course aims to deepen your understanding of art history as a discipline and the range of analytic strategies it affords. We read a mix of classic and more recent essays that have shaped and represent the discipline, and test their wider applicability and limitations. Through this process, participants are encouraged to discover the kinds of questions that most interest them.

Instructor(s): M. Ward     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent Only
Note(s): Required of third-year students who are majoring in art history. Consent is required for registration. This course does not meet the general education requirement in the arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 29600