THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

Information in the Degree Programme Tables may still be subject to change in response to Covid-19

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : Architecture and Landscape Architecture

Postgraduate Course: Text and the City (CLLC11098)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe course explores the aesthetics and ethics of urban writing, public lettering, and various textual forms that rely upon urban spaces and surfaces: graffiti, commemorative inscriptions, signage, advertising, and text-based public art. It examines the ways in which languages, cultures, spatial ideologies and histories intercede and interplay in the making and re-configuring of urban texts. It looks as well at interpretive strategies and discourses of endorsement and containment of textual experiences and practices. The historical and theoretical reflections are linked to case studies and examples taken from the contemporary art and media, graphic design and street art that explore the relationship of letters, text and language to place, architecture and urban landscape.

Course description The course incorporates trans-disciplinary methodological and theoretical questions crucial for probing urban semiotic landscapes, representations of cities in media texts, spatial and temporal dimensions of multimodal everyday urban texts.

Much emphasis will be placed on the multimodality of the forms of presentation of research and on trans-disciplinary methods for investigating texts in specific urban contexts. In their projects, students will creatively engage with urban texts by exploring theories and concepts as well as examining and interpreting textual artifacts, forms of writing, language signs, word-images and related spatial practices, media representations and discourses.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesMinimum level of English for non-native speakers: 7.0 IELTS or equivalent
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Conduct analysis of the graphic forms of writing in their urban context and learn to critically evaluate established theories and methods for the study of the relationship between text and the city.
  2. Learn new theoretical instruments for studying texts and images and analyse their relationship to different cultural and disciplinary traditions.
  3. Learn to analyse and critically assess specific forms of urban writing (graffiti, advertising, inscriptions, logos) as well as technologies that implicate or rely upon visible texts.
  4. Develop skills in relating theory to the analysis of the material manifestations of textual practices and graphic and spatial dimensions of textual artefacts.
  5. Learn to examine urban space and interpret the city in relation to its multitude of textual and intertextual forms.
Reading List
None
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
Keywordsurban visual culture,graffiti,street art,signage,inscriptions,text and image
Contacts
Course organiserDr Ella Chmielewska
Tel: (0131 6)51 3736
Email: Ella.Chmielewska@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Stacey Crawshaw
Tel: (0131 6)51 5735
Email: Stacey.Crawshaw@ed.ac.uk
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