Module Identifier
GG37420
Module Title
NATURE AND THE METROPOLIS
Academic Year
2008/2009
Co-ordinator
Dr Mark J Whitehead
Semester
Semester 2

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Lecture 20 Hours. 10 x 2 hrs
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment A coursework essay of 2,500 words. Standard IGES policy on the late submission of work will apply to the coursework essay. All elements of the assessment must be completed to obtain a pass mark based on the weighted aggregate performance.  40%
Semester Assessment Group presentation  10%
Semester Exam 2 Hours   unseen examination paper consisting of two sections (section 1: short answer questions; section 2: extended essay). Answer three questions from first section (out of six) and one question from second section (out of three)  50%
Supplementary Assessment Supplementary essay  40%
Supplementary Assessment Mark to be carried forward.  10%
Supplementary Exam 2 Hours   50%

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

  1. Describe and evaluate key theories of nature and political ecology.
  2. Display a clear and precise knowledge of key urban theorists and their work.
  3. Describe and evaluate the historical co-evolution of metropolitan society and second nature.
  4. Use a range of web based resources with specific relevance to issues of urban development and nature.
  5. Critically read and analyze accounts of urban social and ecological problems presented in the contemporary media.
  6. Engage in written debates and discussions relating to issues of urban geography and nature.

Aims

The aims of this module are threefold: 1) to provide students with a detailed knowledge of different theoretical and empirical readings of nature; 2) to introduce students to a range of contemporary theories of metropolitan society and urban development; and 3) to explore the relationship between nature and the city as it has been expressed within the diverse fields of planning, architecture, risk management and environmental protest. By focusing analysis on a series of key urban case studies this module provides students with readily accessible examples through which they can explore the varied ways in which the urban and the natural combine. Ultimately this module will offer students an account of how changing social understandings and utilizations of nature are tied into the multifarious processes of urbanization, and how in turn changing patterns of metropolitan development and urban reform have been influenced by social attitudes towards the natural world.

Brief description

There appears to be a curious tension between nature and the city. On the one hand visions of nature and ecological values have been central to the ideologies which have supported many of the celebrated urban movements of the twentieth and preceding centuries. At one and the same time, however, urbanization and the urban have been posited as the antithesis of the nature-based, Arcadian orthodoxies of environmentalism. The main aims of this module are threefold: firstly to provide students with a detailed knowledge of different theoretical and empirical readings of nature; secondly, to introduce students to a range of contemporary theories of metropolitan society and urban development; thirdly to explore the relationship between nature and the city as it has been expressed within the diverse fields of planning, architecture, risk management and environmental protest.

Content

Lecture Themes:
a. Understanding cities - understanding nature
Lecture 1. Nature and city an introduction: from purification to translation.
Lecture 2. (Re)thinking nature and (re)imagining the city.

b. Historical perspectives on the natropolis
Lecture 3. Excluding nature from the city: bounding the city.
Lecture 4. Civilising and metropolitanising nature: the (re)insertion of nature.
Lecture 5. Nature and the economies of cities: the case of Chicago

c. New urban-environmental entanglements - the Modern Natropolis
Lecture 6. Class, race and environmental injustice in the city - the case of the Environmental Justice Movement.
Lecture 7. Technology, nature and the cybernetic city.
Lecture 8. The politics of the cybernetic city - Blade Runner the movie.
Lecture 9. Ecologies of fear and cities of risk - the case of Los Angeles.
Lecture 10. Course review.

Reading List

Recommended Text
Heynen, N., Kaika, M. and Swyngedouw, E. (eds) (2006) In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism London, Routledge Primo search Kaika, M (2005) City of Flows: Modernity Nature and the City Routledge, London Primo search Consult For Futher Information
Braun, B. and Castree N. (eds) (1999) Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium London: Routledge Primo search Cronon, W (1991) Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West London: W.W. Norton Primo search Davis, M (1999) Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster London: Picador Primo search Harvey, D (1996) Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference Oxford: Blackwell Primo search Harvey, D (2000) Spaces of Hope Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Primo search Pepper, D (1993) Eco-socialism: from deep ecology to social justice London: Routledge Primo search Smith, N (1984) Uneven development: nature, capital and the production of Space Oxford: Basil Blackwell Primo search

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6