CCGL9070 Global Issues

The Birth of the City and the Shaping of Societies

This course is under the thematic cluster(s) of:

  • Sustaining Cities, Cultures, and the Earth (SCCE)

SDG-09
SDG-11
Sustainable Development Goals

Timetable for Lectures

Course Description

Cities are said to be our greatest inventions. As spatial, political, socio-economic, and cultural centres in their environs, they are demonstrations of human ingenuity, power, and capacity to manipulate resources and the environment. They also play crucial roles in shaping human development on both individual and collective levels, as such, defining our civilizations. This course invites students to explore the making and remaking of cities and their impact on the development of urban societies, from the rise of cities in the fourth millennium BC in ancient West Asia to the emergence of metropolitan cities and megacity regions in today’s world.

By exploring the making of historical, modern, and contemporary cities in different cultures, this course aims to help students develop a critical and comparative understanding of the key issues, motivations, principles, institutions, and processes involved in city-making and how urban forms and functions interact with urban societies, together communicating visions, beliefs, values, and power and shaping individual and collective identities, and experiences. The course will help students develop a deeper understanding of a rich social and cultural diversity in our urban heritage and traditions and innovations in our urban trajectories, learn about the rise and fall of urban societies, recognize the ongoing process of city-making, and appreciate the unprecedented scale, multi-functions, and commensurate responsibilities of modern and contemporary urban development. We will engage creatively around ideas of sustainable urban development, basic questions of policy and planning, and questions of urban and human flourishing.

[There will be a compulsory fieldtrip scheduled during Reading Week.]

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate a city-scale perspective of society and an integrative understanding of city-making.
  2. Navigate through traditions and innovations, and similarities and differences among diverse urban societies.
  3. Demonstrate an understanding of participation in city-making on international, regional, and local levels.
  4. Demonstrate skills related to creativity, communication, and teamwork in order to improve the quality of urban living for themselves and others.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

Second semester (Wed)

Study Load

Activities Number of hours
Lectures 20
Tutorials 10
Fieldwork / Visits 5
Reading / Self-study 40
Assessment: Essay / Report writing 45
Assessment: Group project and presentation 10
Total: 130

Assessment: 100% coursework

Assessment Tasks Weighting
Participation in lectures and tutorials 10
Short essays 20
Research paper 30
Group project  and presentation 40

Required Reading/Viewing

  • Blondé, B., & Van Damme, I. (2013). Early Modern Europe: 1500–1800. In P. Clark (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (pp. 240-57). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Boone, M. (2013). Medieval Europe. In P. Clark (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (pp. 221-239). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Chen, X., & Fitts, F. (2013). Contemporary Metropolitan Cities. In P. Clark (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (pp. 770-90). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Hung, H. -F., & Zhan, S. (2013). Industrialization and the City: East and West. In P. Clark (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (pp. 645-63). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Lees, A., & Lees, L. H. (2013). Europe: 1800–2000. In P. Clark (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (pp. 464-82). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Lincoln, T. (2021). An Urban History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Selected chapters]
  • Otto, A. (2015). Neo-Assyrian capital cities: from imperial headquarters to cosmopolitan cities. In N. Yoffee (Ed.), Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE–1200 BCE (pp. 469-490). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  • Pittman, H. (2019). The First Cities. In S. Tinney & K. Sonik (Eds.), Journey to the City: A Companion to the Middle East Galleries at the Penn Museum (pp. 46-75). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum.
  • Sassan, S. (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Selected chapters]
  • Terrenato, N. (2015). The archetypal imperial city: the rise of Rome and the burdens of empire. In N. Yoffee (Ed.), Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE–1200 BCE (pp. 513-532). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Films to watch for the entire course

 

Online resources

Course Co-ordinator and Teacher(s)

Course Co-ordinator Contact
Dr S.Y. Chen
School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts		 Tel: 3917 2427
Email: yischen@hku.hk
Teacher(s) Contact
Dr S.Y. Chen
School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts		 Tel: 3917 2427
Email: yischen@hku.hk