Postgraduate Course: Researching the City (PRGE11012)
Course Outline
| School |
School of Geosciences |
College |
College of Science and Engineering |
| Course type |
Standard |
Availability |
Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) |
SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits |
20 |
| Home subject area |
Postgrad Research Courses (School of GeoSciences) |
Other subject area |
None |
| Course website |
None |
|
|
| Course description |
This subject is designed to provide specialist postgraduate research training relevant to students undertaking research that is located in an urban setting or which seeks to analyze and understand urban processes. The subject assumes that advanced level students of the city require two types of core knowledge: (1) an historicized and appropriately contextualized understanding of the different knowledge frames by which cities have been recorded, comprehended and studied (including a sense of the situated production of these distinct knowledge frames); and (2) an introduction into the techniques of data collection, representation and analysis that flow from these quite distinctive knowledge frames. The course has an emphasis on qualitative approaches, and deals with, among other things: urban semiotics, urban ethnography and the everyday, film and documentary traditions, sensory cities (sound, touch), city as text/discourse (including numbers and words), the city and the plan, urban materialities (morphology, technologies). The course specifically addresses the relationship between the ways we know the city (epistemology) and the way we research the city (method).
The course encourages an ethos of ?practical knowing=, which not the quest for essences, totalities or rational orders, but a commitment to admitting
connections, incomplete knowledges, absences.1 It is built upon a belief that
pedagogy should always be undertaken in relation to what Henri Lefebvre called ?localized practices=.2 As such, this course does not simply teach in the abstract about some theory or some techniques used to investigate the city or urban phenomenon. It encourages you to put what is discussed in class into conversation with actual city places and processes. |
Entry Requirements
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites |
|
| Prohibited Combinations |
|
Other requirements |
None
|
| Additional Costs |
None |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | | 1-11 | 11:10 - 13:00 | | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Monday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Ogilvie Room, 2.05 Geography Drummond St |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course students will:
- Appreciate the skills required for advanced research on the city
- Understand what methods and techniques are relevant to what kinds of studies and projects;
- Be equipped to discern the appropriate methodologies for the research projects they wish to pursue
- Know the relationship between theory and methodology and techniques;
- Be able to analysis critically different urban knowledge frames and associated methodologies
- To ascertain and apply specific data collection and analysis frameworks
- Be able to present in written, visual, verbal and other forms, analyses of specific components of the city. |
Assessment Information
| Multi-media analysis presentation and report (to equivalent of 4000 words) |
| Please see Visiting Student Prospectus website for Visiting Student Assessment information |
Special Arrangements
| Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser |
Dr Jane Jacobs
Tel: (0131 6)50 2515
Email: Jane.Jacobs@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Mrs Consuelo Fox
Tel: (0131 6)50 2543
Email: connie.fox@ed.ac.uk |
|
copyright 2010 The University of Edinburgh -
1 September 2010 6:36 am
|
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