VGU Urban Development Planning Overview over Modules and ...

Technical University Darmstadt www.urban-studies.de
Course description
1 Course identification
2.5.4-B
2 Module
Conviviality and
Culture
3 Name of course Cultural production and Urban Space
4 Course instructor Prof. Dr. Shanti Pillai, New York, Auroville, Havana
5 Contents /syllabus This course explores the role of culture in the production of
globalized urban spaces, and the role of urban spaces in
the production of globalized culture. Cultural activities have
long been thought of in the West as the antidotes to the
social ills supposedly promoted by city living. At the same
time, culture constitutes the primary terrain of conflicts over
social differences and urban fears. As the site for the
creation of images, memories and meaning, cultural
production symbolizes and controls who belongs in the city,
and who does not. With the rise of the “global city” and its
corresponding concern for finance, service industries, and
media, culture has increasingly become the business of
urban planners, municipal authorities, and corporations who
give priority to the creation of areas of touristic and
entertainment interest and the privatization of public space.
Individual artists and small-scale cultural organizations find
it hard to compete in the face of such priorities, just as large
numbers of immigrants and ethnic and racial “others” are
exploited and marginalized by these developments. At the
same time these populations create alternative forms of
“cosmopolitanism” through the production of new cultural
forms, as well as by placing pressure on institutions to
appeal to a broader public. In this class students will
consider the relationship between global economics, local
urban development, and the social processes through
which people creatively respond to their living conditions
and make claims to “cultural citizenship.” Our discussion
about these contentious issues will include de-centering the
academic debates which have frequently assumed a Euro-
American model of the global city. We will also take note of
the ways in which digital technologies might (or might not)
displace the importance of “place” in the production of
culture in the 21 st century. The course is designed as a
seminar to introduce students to a range of issues to
simulate their thinking about the cities in which they might
find themselves working. Emphasis is less on lecturing and
passive note-taking, and more on teacher-student
collaboration in discussing open-ended theoretical,
practical, and political questions. For their final projects
each student will choose a specific area of inquiry and
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