The Urban Studies program teaches students to analyze the city, urban life, and urbanization through a variety of disciplinary lenses. Students learn where cities come from, how they grow, thrive, and decline, how they are organized, and how to construct meaningful, inclusive, secure, and sustainable places. The curriculum examines how urban problems arise, how they have been previously addressed, and how to plan cities of the future. Concentrators enjoy the breadth of courses in American Studies, economics, history, literature, history of art and architecture, political science, sociology, and planning as well as provide in-depth courses integrating those perspectives. We introduce the fundamentals of Urban Studies scholarship as well as intense examination of an urban problem in focused seminars. These advanced seminars offer opportunities to write extensive and synthetic interdisciplinary analyses that serve as capstones to the concentration. The program’s 10-course curriculum provides sufficient flexibility to allow students to pursue specific urban interests or to take courses in urban focus areas of Built Environment; Humanities; Social Sciences; and Sustainable Urbanism. The Program insures that students master at least one basic research methodology and perform research or fieldwork projects, which may result in an honors thesis. Fieldwork training includes working with local agencies and nonprofit organizations on practical urban problems. Capstone projects entail original research papers in Urban Studies seminars; academically supervised video, artistic, or community service projects; and Honors Theses for eligible concentrators.
Concentrators who are especially interested in making deeper connections between their curriculum and long-term engaged activities such as internships, public service, humanitarian and development work, and many other possible forms of community involvement might consider the Engaged Scholar Program in US. The program combines preparation, experience, and reflection to offer students opportunities to enhance the integration of academic learning and social engagement.
For a concentration, the program requires ten courses selected from four course groups:
| Introduction (choose one): | 1 | |
| City Politics | ||
| The City: An Introduction to Urban Studies | ||
| Urban Life in Providence: An Introduction | ||
| Research Methods (choose one): | 1 | |
| Essential Statistics | ||
| Statistical Inference I | ||
| Statistical Inference II | ||
| Statistical Methods | ||
| Introduction to Econometrics | ||
| Essentials of Data Analysis | ||
| Political Research Methods | ||
| Methods of Social Research | ||
| Introductory Statistics for Social Research 1 | ||
| Core Courses (3 courses required, in at least 3 disciplines, such as American studies, anthropology, economics, education, English, history, history of art and architecture, political science, and sociology, as well as urban planning when staffing allows) | 3 | |
| Cities of Sound: Place and History in American Pop Music | ||
| Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis | ||
| Urban Life: Anthropology in and of the City | ||
| Anthropology of Disasters | ||
| Urban Economics | ||
| Introduction to Geographic Information Systems for Environmental Applications | ||
| City Novels | ||
| Modernist Cities | ||
| Reading New York | ||
| Sustainable Design in the Built Environment | ||
| Environmental Stewardship and Resilience in Urban Systems | ||
| Introduction to Architectural Design Studio | ||
| The Other History of Modern Architecture | ||
| Architecture and Urbanism of Africa | ||
| Modern Architecture | ||
| Contemporary Architecture | ||
| City and Cinema | ||
| American Urban History, 1600-1870 | ||
| American Urban History, 1870-1965 (HIST 1550::American Urban History to 1870) | ||
| City Politics | ||
| African American Politics | ||
| Remaking the City | ||
| Principles and Methods of Geographic Information Systems | ||
| Social Exclusion | ||
| Nineteenth-Century Architecture | ||
| Fieldwork in the Urban Community | ||
| The United States Metropolis, 1945-2000 | ||
| The Political Foundations of the City | ||
| Housing in America | ||
| Urban Politics and Urban Public Policy | ||
| Seminar courses (choose three) 2 | 3 | |
| City of the American Century: The Culture and Politics of Urbanism in Postwar New York City | ||
| Berlin: Architecture, Politics and Memory | ||
| Providence Architecture | ||
| Theory and Practice of Engaged Scholarship | ||
| American Culture and the City | ||
| Downtown Development | ||
| Ancient Cities: From the Origins Through Late Antiquity | ||
| The Changing American City | ||
| The Politics of Community Organizing | ||
| Jerusalem Divided: Politics and Cultural Heritage | ||
| Urban Regimes in the American Republic | ||
| The Cultural and Social Life of the Built Environment | ||
| Cities in Mind: Modern Urban Thought and Theory | ||
| The City, the River, and the Sea: Social and Environmental Change at the Water's Edge | ||
| Transportation: An Urban Planning Perspective | ||
| City Senses: Urbanism Beyond Visual Spectacle | ||
| Housing Justice | ||
| Berlin: Global Metropolis (1945-2020) | ||
| How to Shape a City: An Introduction to Real Estate Development | ||
| Complementary Curriculum (Total of 2 courses required): | 2 | |
1. Any course from the Introductory or Core Curriculum options above not used to fulfill another requirement | ||
2. OR Any of the following: | ||
| Race, Gender, and Urban Politics | ||
| African-American Life in the City | ||
| Making America: Twentieth-Century U.S. Immigrant/Ethnic Literature | ||
| Oral History and Community Memory | ||
| Charles Chapin and the Urban Public Health Movement | ||
| Inequality, Sustainability, and Mobility in a Car-Clogged World | ||
| Anthropology of Homelessness | ||
| Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past | ||
| City and Sanctuary in the Ancient World | ||
| Cities and Urban Space in the Ancient World | ||
| Cities, Colonies and Global Networks in the Western Mediterranean | ||
| City and the Festival: Cult Practices and Architectural Production in the Ancient Near East | ||
| Archaeologies of the Near East | ||
| How Houses Build People | ||
| The Archaeology of College Hill | ||
| Race and Inequality in the United States | ||
| Harlem Renaissance: The Politics of Culture | ||
| Land Use and Built Environment: An Entrepreneurial View | ||
| Wild Literature in the Urban Landscape | ||
| Environmental Law and Policy | ||
| Local Food Systems and Urban Agriculture | ||
| Painters, Builders, and Bankers in Early Modern Italy | ||
| Constructing the Eternal City: Popes and Pilgrims in Early Modern Rome | ||
| Renaissance Venice and the Veneto | ||
| Contemporary American Urbanism: City Design and Planning, 1945-2000 | ||
| Samurai and Merchants, Prostitutes and Priests: Japanese Urban Culture in the Early Modern Period | ||
| Capitalism, Land and Water: A World History: 1848 to the present | ||
| Cities and Urban Culture in China | ||
| City as Modernity:Popular Culture, Mass Consumption, Urban Entertainment in Nineteenth-Century Paris | ||
| History of Rio de Janeiro | ||
| London: 1750 to the Present | ||
| Urban History of Latin America | ||
| Modernity, Jews, and Urban Identities in Central Europe (JUDS 1718) | ||
| Program Evaluation | ||
| Word, Image and Power in Early Modern Italy | ||
| Japanese Cities: Tokyo and Kyoto | ||
| Infrastructure Policy | ||
| Power and Prosperity in Urban America | ||
| Imagining Moscow: Utopia and Urban Spaces in 20th-Century Russian Culture | ||
| The Fate of the Coast | ||
| American Heritage: Democracy, Inequality, and Public Policy | ||
| Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the Modern World | ||
| Human Needs and Social Services | ||
3. RISD courses approved by the Urban Studies Program each semester as applicable to the Urban Studies concentration. 3 | ||
4. Any course taken at another university in the US or abroad and approved by the Urban Studies Program each semester (2 maximum) | ||
| Total Credits | 10 | |
| 1 | There are also other statistics courses offered by other departments (e.g., Applied Mathematics, Cognitive Sciences, and Psychology). On occasion, an alternative research skills course may be approved for a specific concentration. |
| 2 | The courses provide opportunities to undertake research or fieldwork projects and all qualify as "capstone" experiences. |
| 3 | No more than two may be used to satisfy the requirements of this concentration. The RISD course is identified in the student's record at Brown by a RISD course code. |
Off-Campus Courses: Some courses taken outside Brown (e.g., in study abroad programs) may be used for credit towards the concentration if the material covered directly corresponds to that taught in Brown courses, or is relevant to the complementary curriculum. Such courses will be approved each semester by the concentration advisor.
Honors
The Urban Studies Honors Program is intended for students who have been highly successful in their Urban Studies concentration coursework and who want the opportunity to pursue a research project in more depth than is possible in an undergraduate seminar. Such a project requires a high degree of initiative and dedication. It also requires significant amounts of time and energy, as well as demonstrative skills in research and writing. Students must apply in the middle of the second semester of their junior year. (This applies to students who will complete the degree requirements in December, as well as May.) The student's honors application must include a brief research proposal, a list of completed urban coursework, and must be signed by a faculty member willing to serve as the student's honors advisor. During the Fall and Spring of the senior year, honors candidates must complete two additional courses beyond the ten courses required for the concentration: URBN 1971 Senior Honors Thesis I in Urban Studies(S/NC) and URBN 1972 Senior Honors Thesis II in Urban Studies (grade). The candidate's final thesis must be of outstanding quality, in order to qualify for honors.