28 courses with the subject CITY B, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
CITY B185URBAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY1.0
Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.
CITY B190FORM OF THE CITY: HISTORIES OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT1.0
This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.
CITY B201INTRODUCTION TO GIS FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS1.0
This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).
CITY B217QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR URBAN RESEARCH1.0
This course offers a hands-on introduction to quantitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), quantitative research methods (survey design and collection and analysis of secondary socio-spatial data), and data analysis (basic descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using Excel and SPSS). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.
CITY B218QUALITATIVE METHODS FOR URBAN RESEARCH1.0
This course offers a hands-on introduction to qualitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, and document analysis), and data analysis (qualitative coding and data analysis using NVivo). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.
This studio design course introduces the principles of architectural design. Suggested Preparation: drawing, some history of architecture, and permission of instructor.
This course surveys the dynamic social and spatial processes that make (and constantly re-make) cities in the Global South. We examine what it means to be a city in the ‘Global South’ and study the commonalities that unite these spaces in a post-colonial, post-Bretton Woods world. That said, this is a course that centers diversity among cases in Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia: the unique demands and interventions of people and community groups working for a better urban life, the experimental efforts of local political leaders and planners, and the ways in which particular local histories layer upon themselves to produce a world of singular urban experiences. Local film, memoir, activist non-fiction, and interviews with local planners and practitioners will supplement academic readings to provide a ‘street-level’ view of everyday life in global cities.
CITY B248ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY RESEARCH WORKSHOP: SPATIAL HISTORIES OF HEALTH1.0
This course aims to build students' skills working with and interpreting visual and textual primary sources relevant to the study of the built environment. The course is structured around particular themes that will animate how historians use methods of visual, spatial, and material analysis to illuminate intersectional histories of the built environment attentive to questions of race, class, gender, (dis)ability, environment, empire, and more. Students will gain methods of interpretation to explore the agency of individuals and groups in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities and sites. The aim is to develop confidence with reading urban and architectural documents—floor plans, perspective drawings, photographs, three-dimensional artifacts, maps, design periodicals, etc.—and connecting them with broader historical themes. The course will be structured as a hybrid lecture and methodology workshop, with each week including both components.
CITY B253BEFORE MODERNISM: ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM OF THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES1.0
The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.
CITY B306ADVANCED FIELDWORK TECHNIQUES: PLACES IN TIME1.0
A hands-on workshop for research into the histories of places, intended to bring students into contact with some of the raw materials of architectural and urban history. A focus will be placed on historical images and texts, and on creating engaging informational experiences that are transparent to their evidentiary basis.
This course examines Chinese urbanization as both a physical and social process. Drawing broadly on scholarship in anthropology, political science, geography, and city planning, we will construct a history of the present of Chinese cities. By taking the long view on China’s urban development, this course seeks to contextualize and make sense of the sometimes dazzling, sometimes dismal, and often contested landscape of everyday life in contemporary urban China. Prior familiarity with China and the Chinese language is welcomed but not required.
This course combines historical and theoretical research with studio and design practice in architecture. It is project based and allows students to work collaboratively on research questions relevant to built environments. This iteration tracks the form and choices shaping three successive built landscapes over five centuries – from the agricultural communities of Quakers in Wales and the Welsh Tract in Lower Merion in the 17th and 18th centuries to the commuter suburb of the 19th and 20th. The course also looks ahead from this history as a studio collectively exploring key elements of a “New Bryn Mawr” as an idealized sustainable community of 1000 residents whose design specifically addresses environmental concerns, inequality, anxiety, joblessness, and spatial fragmentation.
In this course advanced students will work with local groups around concrete projects. Class sessions will convene to discuss background readings as well as evaluation of tools and experiences.
CITY B378FORMATIVE LANDSCAPES: THE ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING OF AMERICAN COLLEGIATE CAMPUSES1.0
The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.
An exploration of course planning, pedagogy and creative thinking as students work to help others understand pathways they have already explored in introductory and writing classes. This opportunity is available only to advanced students of highest standing by professorial invitation.
Praxis III courses are Independent Study courses and are developed by individual students, in collaboration with faculty and field supervisors. A Praxis courses is distinguished by genuine collaboration with fieldsite organizations and by a dynamic process of reflection that incorporates lessons learned in the field into the classroom setting and applies theoretical understanding gained through classroom study to work done in the broader community. Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.
