Global Highways

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Global Highways examines cities from a historical perspective focused on urban and suburban development, particularly infrastructure; experiences of slavery, resistance, and freedom unique to urban spaces; cultures of sound and music that have special relationships to urban populations, such as jazz, kwela, and samba; and the legacies of colonialism and forced labor in present-day tourist economies. The class centers weekly readings related to New Orleans, Louisiana; Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa; Paris, France; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Using primary sources, including text, music, and film, as well as secondary literature written by historians, musicians, artists, and activists, students will learn how to listen to a city to know its history; acquire broad knowledge of the relationship between urban development and slavery in the Atlantic world; and apply this knowledge to urban planning, historic preservation, performance studies, and historical analysis.