THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2018/2019

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : History of Art

Postgraduate Course: The Creative City in Theory and Practice (HIAR11084)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe term 'Creative City' was first used in the late-1980s by urbanist Charles Landry to describe an approach to city-building and governance informed by a logic of creativity, and focused on the promotion of culture and the 'creative industries' (advertising, architecture, art, crafts, design, fashion, music, the performing arts, publishing, software, TV and radio, video games etc.). The idea has gained particular currency in relation to post-industrial cities, in which the creative industries have been encouraged to occupy the void left by the collapse of traditional industry. This course examines the theory and practice of the creative city, as formulated by both Landry and Richard Florida, as well as more recent work on the creative and cultural industries (Harvey, Hewison, McRobbie). Case studies will be largely derived from the UK, given the particularities of cultural and urban policy across the globe, however international examples will be referenced in order to situate the UK in its global context. Edinburgh itself will be a particular focus, and Scotland will be considered more widely as a case study of a nation with a particular investment in the concept of the creative city.
Course description Week 1: Introduction - How to Read the City?

PART 1: ORIGINS OF THE CREATIVE CITY

Week 2: The Post-Industrial City - Loft Living and Gentrification in Manhattan

Week 3: The Post-Industrial Economy - The Rise of the Creative Industries

Week 4: Peer-Review Presentations

PART 2: THE CREATIVE CITY

Week 5: The Creative Class and the Creative City

Week 6: Public Space and the Social Life of Creative Cities

PART 3: ART IN THE CREATIVE CITY

Week 7: Art Institutions and Culture-Led Regeneration

Week 8: Artists' Interventions into the City

PART 4: CASE STUDIES

Week 9: Liverpool - Biennial City

Week 10: Edinburgh - Heritage City

Week 11: Conclusions
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2018/19, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  1
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 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
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.
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.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. 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.
  2. Will have learned to think critically about the urban environment and culture's role therein.
  3. Will have gained skills to analyse, read and critique the city, and to adapt art-historical methods to the study of the urban environment.
  4. Will have gained an awareness of key developments in urban and cultural policy since the 1980s.
  5. Will have begun to develop the capacity to research, structure and present their own arguments and methodological positions independently.
Reading List
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.

Hewison, Robert. Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain. London: Verso, 2014.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. London: Pimlico, 2000.

Landry, Charles. The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan, 2000.

Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin K. Wyly, eds. The Gentrification Reader. London: Routledge, 2010.

LeGates, Richard T., and Frederic Stout. The City Reader. 5th edition. London: Routledge, 2011.

Miles, Malcolm, Iain Borden, and Tim Hall. The City Cultures Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.

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.
KeywordsCreative Industries,City,Culture,Urban,Regeneration
Contacts
Course organiserDr Harry Weeks
Tel: (0131 6)51 5450
Email: Harry.Weeks@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Remi Jankeviciute
Tel: (0131 6)51 5773
Email: Ramune.Jankeviciute@ed.ac.uk
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