Revolutionary Cities: Protest, Rebellion and Representation in Modern Urban Space

Undergraduate

Cities have always been hotbeds of radical ideas and actions. Their cafes and taverns, drawing rooms and universities have been incubators of new ideas, revolutionary ideologies and debate, while their streets and public spaces have been the sites of demonstrations, protests, and uprisings. Since cities are key nodes in larger networks of trade and cultural exchange, these local events have often had a global audience and impact. This seminar explores the interaction of urban space and event, and the media and technologies of revolutionary representation, through case studies of particular cities at transformational moments in their development. These begin with Boston in the 1760s and 1770s, and may include Paris in 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and again in 1968, St. Petersburg in 1917, Beijing in 1949 and again in 1989, Havana in 1959, Prague, Berlin and Johannesburg and other cities in 1989, Cairo in 2011, Hong Kong in 2011-12, 2014 and 2019, and other urban sites of the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements. Course work in modern history is recommended. HU T 1:30pm-3:25pm