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The second half of the 19th century witnessed the rise of a new form of urban settlement in Europe and across the globe—the metropolis. Product of industrial capitalism and the quickly accelerating rate of urbanization, this new form of urbanity—with its straight boulevards, increasingly lit streets, and quick pace of life—is typically portrayed as an epitome of modernity. Yet, unlike London, Paris or New York, Central and East European cities are only rarely portrayed as sites, let alone as producers of the modern. Archetypally labeled by existing literature as relative latecomers to the modernization process, their transformation into modern urban settlements and their place within the larger story of modern life in Central Europe is often glossed over. Drawing on recent research in urban studies, this course seeks to problematize the notion of ‘urban backwardness’ and firmly position the Central European city as an important site of the modern experience, without disregarding its peculiarities. How did urban dwellers in Central Europe experience big city life? Were they as delighted about electric lightning, public transportation, and growing consumerism as their fellow urbanites in London or Paris? Did they also struggle with uprootedness? Did they devour scandalous news of the gutter press and feared for their lives due to heightened crime and filth? Did they experience moral panics? How did they understand themselves in relations to their urban home and what role did the sweeping emergence of national sentiment play in it? Finally, how did their lives and urban surroundings change during the two world wars and does this experience make the Central European city unique?
This seminar aims to introduce students to current topics as well as methodologies in modern urban history through the lens of the Central European city. While the course readings are primarily rooted in secondary literature, the seminar will feature in-class analysis of primary sources. The focus is placed on Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, and Budapest in the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Poslední úprava: Beneš Ladislav, PhDr. (29.09.2021)
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Goals for this course include the following:
Poslední úprava: Piskačová Zora, Mgr. (29.09.2021)
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Apart from various articles from academic journals such as The Journal of Urban History, the course readings include chapters and excerpts from the following literature:
All readings will be available on the course Moodle site: https://dl2.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=4226#section-0 Poslední úprava: Piskačová Zora, Mgr. (29.09.2021)
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This seminar will meet on Thursdays at 9:30 AM for the duration of 80 min in a standard full-time teaching mode. It is rooted in-class discussion of assigned readings as well as aditional primary sources and student presentations. Poslední úprava: Piskačová Zora, Mgr. (29.09.2021)
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Course Requirements: Active Class Participation 20% Presentation 20% Final Paper (approx. 3000 words) 60%
Poslední úprava: Piskačová Zora, Mgr. (30.09.2021)
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JTM 505: The City in Modern Central Europe Zora Piskačová, M.A. E-mail: zora.piskacova@unc.edu Office Hours: By appointment
Course Description: The second half of the 19th century witnessed the rise of a new form of urban settlement in Europe and across the globe—the metropolis. Product of industrial capitalism and the quickly accelerating rate of urbanization, this new form of urbanity—with its straight boulevards, increasingly lit streets, and quick pace of life—is typically portrayed as an epitome of modernity. Yet, unlike London, Paris or New York, Central and East European cities are only rarely portrayed as sites, let alone as producers of the modern. Archetypally labeled by existing literature as relative latecomers to the modernization process, their transformation into modern urban settlements and their place within the larger story of modern life in Central Europe is often glossed over. Drawing on recent research in urban studies, this course seeks to problematize the notion of ‘urban backwardness’ and firmly position the Central European city as an important site of the modern experience, without disregarding its peculiarities. How did urban dwellers in Central Europe experience big city life? Were they as delighted about electric lightning, public transportation, and growing consumerism as their fellow urbanites in London or Paris? Did they also struggle with uprootedness? Did they devour scandalous news of the gutter press and feared for their lives due to heightened crime and filth? Did they experience moral panics? How did they understand themselves in relations to their urban home and what role did the sweeping emergence of national sentiment play in it? Finally, how did their lives and urban surroundings change during the two world wars and does this experience make the Central European city unique? This seminar aims to introduce students to current topics as well as methodologies in modern urban history through the lens of the Central European city. While the course readings are primarily rooted in secondary literature, the seminar will feature in-class analysis of primary sources. The focus is placed on Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, and Budapest in the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century.
Course Requirements: Active Class Participation 20% Presentation 20% Final Paper (approx. 3000 words) 60%
Assignments: Weekly Participation: This course hinges on discussion. Coming to class is good, but insufficient. To receive a solid grade (C) and above, you must show me you are present mentally as well as physically. This will require you to read the assigned reading before class and think about them! Please make sure to bring your readings to class—either in printed, or in their electronic form. All readings can be found on our Moodle site. Presentation: Each student will prepare one, 15–20-minute presentation on a previously agreed topic. While the themes are set, each of you will have a large wiggle room to transform it into something you are interested in. You will be asked to provide a one-page hand-out plus bibliography of at least five sources for each student in the class. One week before the due date, I ask you to set up a meeting with me to discuss your outline. This is a necessary part of holding a presentation. If I don’t see your handout before, I will not let you present. Please submit your final hand out to me at least 12 hours before your presentation – I will post it on Moodle so that others can refer to it. Your presentation may, but does not have to, serve as a basis for your end of the term paper. Research Paper: Your final research paper should have a clearly stated research question and a thesis. It should feature a literature review (academic sources) and be rooted in an in-depth analysis of primary sources. It must adhere to proper academic ethics; cite each used source and feature a bibliography. Your final paper may address any topic of your choosing as long as it stays related to our course—in other words, it must tackle the city in modern Central Europe. The point of this paper is not to determine the cosmological meaning of the universe or figure out the true nature of the human soul, keep your question small and manageable! Still, to avoid unpleasant surprises, I ask you to submit a proposal of no more than 400 words to be by 2 December 2021 via Moodle. Please provide me with your topic, your hypothesis, and a short list of your primary and secondary sources. This will allow me to provide you with detailed feedback!
Chicago Citation Style: I expect you to cite your sources in the Chicago Style using footnotes. Please refer to the quick guide posted on Moodle for details or come and see me. Grading Policy:
· Late work will incur a penalty of 5% if submitted within three days, 10% within a week · Work that is more than one week late will not be accepted unless otherwise agreed or unless a student can provide a reasonable justification (e.g. medical emergency). · Plagiarism will not be tolerated! If you have questions on what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, please come and see me.
Attendance Policy: Students can miss one class - no questions asked. Any other missed classes must be ‘excused’ through relevant justification (e.g. illness, serious personal reasons, attendance of extraordinary event related to the study program). As per institute directive, if the number of absences exceeds two, the student will be required to complete a separate written assignment for each additional absence, in consultation with the instructor. A high number of missed classes may result for lower grade or failing the course. Office Hours: I will be holding office hours only by appointment: zora.piskacova@unc.edu. I am here to help, not to make your life difficult. Moreover, I believe that communication is key as I cannot help you if I don’t know what is going on! If you show up and talk to me, I am relatively lenient, but if you can’t submit something on time or you really don’t know where to start with your paper, you need to tell me! Hence if anything comes up, shoot me an email, set up a meeting and we’ll figure it out! Course Schedule:[1] Week 1:
Sept. 30 Introduction(s)
Week 2:
Oct. 7 What is a City?
· Lewis Mumford, “What is a City?” Architectural Record (1937), 28-32 · Charles Tilly, “What Good is Urban History?” Journal of Urban History 22 (1996): 702-719 · Richard Rodger and Roey Sweet, “The Changing Nature of Urban History,” History in Focus (2008) · Markian Prokopovych, Maciej Janowski, Constantin Iordachi and Balázs Trencsényi, “Introduction,” East Central Europe/ECE 33, no. 1 (2006): 1-7
Week 3:
Oct. 14 Urbanization and the Emergence of the Central European City
· Péter Hanák, “Urbanization and Civilization: Vienna and Budapest,” in The Garden and the Workshop (1998), 3-43 · Gary B. Cohen, “Society and Culture in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest in the Late Nineteenth Century,” East European Quarterly 20, no. 4 (1986): 467-484 · Eszter Gantner and Heidi Hein-Kircher, “‘Emerging Cities’: Knowledge and Urbanization in Europe’s Borderlands 1880-1945—Introduction,” Journal of Urban History 43, no. 4 (July 2017): 575–86 Presentation: Brody: A Loser of Modernity? Presentation: Company Towns: The Case of Zlín
Week 4 – 8: The City as a Space of Modernity
Oct. 21 Experiencing Urban Modernity and Its Discontents
· Marshall Berman, “Modernity – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” in All that is Solid Melts into Air (1982), 15-36 · Georg Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life,” 11-19 · Péter Hanák, “The Garden and The Workshop: Reflections on Fin-De-Siecle Culture in Vienna and Budapest” in The Garden and the Workshop (1998), 63-97 · Moritz Föllmer, “Risk, Isolation and Unstable Selfhood,” in Individuality and Modernity in Berlin: Self and Society from Weimar to the Wall (2013), 25-47
Presentation: The Flaneur: An Epitome of Modernity? Presentation: Friedrich Engels and the Other Side of the Great City
Nov. 4 The City as a Space of Leisure and Everyday Life
· Gábor Gyáni, Identity and the Urban Experience: Fin-de-siécle Budapest (2004), excerpts · Nathaniel D. Wood, “Planes, Trams and Automobiles: The Dangers and Allure of Modern Technology,” in Becoming Metropolitan, 129-160 · Jill Steward, “Gruss aus Wien’: Urban Tourism in Austria-Hungary before the First World War,” in The City in Central Europe (1999), 123-144 · David Clay Large, The Grand Spas of Central Europe: A History of Intrigue, Politics, Art and Healing (2015), excerpts
Presentation: The Department Store as an Urban Site of Leisure Presentation: The Coffeehouse as an Urban Site of Leisure
Nov. 11 Big City Night
Background: · Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “The Street,” in Disenchanted Night (1995), 79-154 · Joachim Schlor, Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930 (1998), excerpts · Bryan D. Palmer, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression (2000), excerpts
Presentation: Women in the Night: The Gendered Nature of Urban Time
Nov. 18 Crime, Filth and Disease in the City
· Roland Perényi, “Urban Places, Criminal Spaces: Police and Crime in Fin de Siècle Budapest,” The Hungarian Historical Review 1, no. 1-2 (2012): 134-165 · Sace Elder, “‘Life has Recently Become Cheap,’: Murder, Moral Panic and the Uncertainty of Normality,” in Murder Scenes: Normality, Deviance, and Criminal Violence in Weimar Berlin (2010), 16-44 · Nathaniel Wood, “‘Big-city muck’: Images of the ‘Great City’ in the ‘Gutter Press,’” in Becoming Metropolitan, 161-191 Presentation: Fritz Lang’s M Presentation: ‘Großstadtwirbel’: Changes in Urban Soundscape
Week 9 & 10: Between the Local, the National and the Cosmopolitan
Nov. 25 Cities as Theaters of Nationalism?
· Claire E. Nolte, “Celebrating Slavic Prague: Festivals and the Urban Environment, 1891–1912,” Bohemia 52, no. 1 (2012): 37–54 · Peter Bugge, “The Making of a Slovak City: The Czechoslovak Renaming of Pressburg/Pozsony/Presporok, 1918-19,” Austrian History Yearbook 35 (2004): 205-227 · Theodore Weeks, “Creating Polish Wilno, 1919-1939,” in Races to Modernity: Metropolitan Aspirations in Eastern Europe, 1890–1940 (2014), 73-100
Presentation: Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv? The National Transformations of a Borderland City Presentation: Integrated Urban History: A New Approach to Urban History in Eastern Europe?
Dec. 2 Not Just the National
· Serhiy Bilenky Imperial Urbanism in the Borderlands: Kyiv, 1800-1905 (2018), excerpts · Nathaniel D. Wood, “Urban Self-Identification in East Central Europe Before the Great War: The Case of Cracow,” East Central Europe 33, no. 1-2 (2006): 9-29 · Kathryn Ciancia, “Borderland Modernity: Poles, Jews and Urban Spaces in Interwar Europe,” The Journal of Modern History 531-561
Presentation: Beyond Borders: From the Transnational Municipal Moment to Twinning Presentation: City Diplomacy? Cities as Political Actors
FINAL PAPER PROPOSAL DUE
Week 11:
Dec. 9 The City at War
· Robert Blobaum, “A Walk in the Dark: Society, Technology, and Culture in Wartime Warsaw, 1914-1918,” The Polish Review 64, no. 3: War and Occupation in Polish Cities in World War I (2019): 9-27 · Jeffrey M. Diefendorf, “Bombs and Rubble: The Air War and Its Consequences,” in In the Wake of War: The Reconstruction of German Cities after World War II (1993), 3-17 · Tarik Cyril Amar, “The Lemberg of Nazism: German Occupation, 1941–1944” in The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv (2016), excerpts · Gregor Thum, The Uprooted: How Breslau became Wrocław during the Century of Expulsions (Princeton University Press, 2011), excerpts
Presentation: Coping with Disaster:Rebuilding War Destroyed Cities after 1945 Presentation: The City and the Holocaust
Week 12:
Dec. 16 Wrap Up
· Karl Schlögel, “The Comeback of the European Cities,” International Review of Sociology 16, no. 2 (2006): 471-485
FINAL PAPER DUE ON MOODLE ON 23. 01. 2022 [1] I reserve the right to make changes to the syllabus if necessary. (This includes mostly cutting down readings after I realize I was a bit too ambitious.) I do not aim to be unfair and will communicate these changes in a timely manner. Poslední úprava: Piskačová Zora, Mgr. (30.09.2021)
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