Postgraduate Course: The Creative City in Theory and Practice (HIAR11084)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines contemporary art's interactions with the city, situating these in relation to recent turn towards 'Creative City' models of urban policy and development. |
| Course description |
The term 'Creative City' was first used in the late-1980s by urbanist Charles Landry to describe an approach to urban development and governance informed by a logic of creativity, and focused on the promotion of culture and the 'creative industries'. The idea gained particular momentum in the 21st Century in the wake of the work of urban economist Richard Florida, whose writings on the creative class have led to the widespread adoption of creative city strategies as a panacea to all manner of post-industrial urban ills. This course examines the roles played by art practices, art practitioners and art institutions in the contexts of the creative city.
Seminars will examine the histories of community art and public art; the role of the museum and the gallery in urban regeneration schemes; art's and artists' imbrications within gentrification processes, and indeed instances of solidarity between art and anti-gentrification activism. Case studies are largely drawn from North America and Europe - those regions which have most voraciously embraced the creative city model - but we will also attend to recent adoptions of creative city strategy in the Middle East and South-East Asia.
The course is necessarily interdisciplinary, drawing upon art-historical methodologies and sources alongside those of the many other disciplines with a stake in urban environment, including architectural history, sociology, urban studies and economics.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2017/18, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 16 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Summative assessment: Students will submit a 4000-word coursework essay. This will be the basis of your final grade/mark.
Formative assessment: In Week 4 students will present their essay topics to one another in an open peer-review session. Peer evaluation is a valuable part of the academic process and it is important to learn how to review others' work and to get used to having your own reviewed. For this exercise you should prepare a 3-minute presentation on your chosen essay topic. Following this session you will submit a 250-word abstract of your essay.
Formative Assessment does not count to your final grade/mark but is used to support your learning. Feedback on formative assessment is designed to help you learn more effectively by giving you feedback on your performance and on how it can be improved and/or maintained.
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| Feedback |
Formative Feedback will take two forms:
1) In Week 4 students will each present a 3-minute synopsis of their summative assessment essay, which will then be subject to peer review and feedback from classmates and the course organiser.
2) In the following week students will submit a 250-word abstract for their essay, along with a bibliography and outline of the essay's structure, via Learn. The course organiser will then offer written feedback on this.
Summative feedback will be offered in Week 11's seminar, which is dedicated to reflection on the course as a whole.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Will have aquired an in-depth knowledge of the theory and practice of the creative city, as well as related issues such as the creative industries, regeneration and gentrification.
- Will have learned to think critically about the urban environment and culture's role therein.
- Will have gained skills to analyse, read and critique the city, and to adapt art-historical methods to the study of the urban environment.
- Will have gained an awareness of key developments in urban and cultural policy since the 1980s.
- Will have begun to develop the capacity to research, structure and present their own arguments and methodological positions independently.
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Reading List
Deutsche, Rosalyn, and Cara Gendel Ryan. ¿The Fine Art of Gentrification¿. October 31 (1984): 91¿111.
Florida, Richard L. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Graham, Janna. ¿¿A Strong Curatorial Vision for the Neighbourhood¿: Countering the Diplomatic Condition of the Arts in Urban Neighbourhoods¿. Art & the Public Sphere 6, no. 1/2 (September 2017): 33¿49.
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. London: Pimlico, 2000.
Kester, Grant H. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
LeGates, Richard T., and Frederic Stout. The City Reader. 5th edition. London: Routledge, 2011.
Zukin, Sharon. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. Baltimore; London: John Hopkins University Press, 1982. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Writing, verbal presentation |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
The class will be taught through weekly 2-hour seminars, some of which will involve fieldwork around Edinburgh. |
| Keywords | City,Culture,Urban,gentrification,public art,community art |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Harry Weeks
Tel: (0131 6)51 5450
Email: Harry.Weeks@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Remi Jankeviciute
Tel: (0131 6)51 5773
Email: Ramune.Jankeviciute@ed.ac.uk |
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