Anthropology 297: Urban North Africa & the Mediterranean
Quarter: Fall 2016Instructor: Susan Slymovics
Examination of urbanism in North Africa and eastern Mediterranean to provide comparative literary, architectural, and ethnographic study of contemporary city, by emphasizing global connections whether they span African continent or across Mediterranean. Consideration of North African cities according to history of urbanism based on Islamic law and custom about architecture and city life, to lay groundwork for examination of colonial legacies (European quarters versus native madina and mellah) and strategic role that North African cities have played in globalization and empire. What are formal aspects of city, and how is it created in space? More important, what is urban process--integration of specific social, political, technical, and artistic forces that generate any given city's form? How may architecture of city be situated within cultural discourse, and how may city be explained--formally and culturally--as lived-in space?
