Topic 4: New Urban Sociology

May 68     

May 68 & Lefebvre

Today, we will learn the background of the new approach that emerged in the 1960s by criticizing traditional urban sociology -the early Chicago School scholars and raising a question about the structure, power or struggle in the traditional approach.

Students need to familiarize themselves with the 1968 movement in Western Europe and North America.

• Read:
  • Events of May 1968 by Richard Wolin
•  Listen:
  • • In France, The Protests Of May 1968 Reverberate Today — And Still Divide The French in NPR.
• Watch:
  • “All Power to the Imagination”: Paris, May 1968: The Student Revolt

    •  

  • May 68: When France took a stand

• • The legacy of May ‘68 – BBC Newsnight

May 68 & Urban Crisis

May 68 & Lefebvre

• • Henri Lefebvre:
    • Read:
      • “Henri Lefebvre: philosopher of the ordinary” by Michael Gardiner
      • “The Right to the City” in The Right to the City
  • The Grand Ensembles
    • If you want to know more about the grands ensembles, read “The Grands Ensembles: Fifty Years of French Political Fiction ”
      • Just read “The Invention of the Grands Ensembles” in this article.

Urban Crisis from the Bronx to Los Angeles

Today, we focus on the urban crisis in the United States in the 1960s and 70s.

• Read:
  • Zhandarka Kurti. “Why the Bronx Burned: an interview with Vivian Vazquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran” Jacobin
  • “Watts Riots of 1965” in Encyclopedia Britannica
  • Daniel Denvir. “1968 and the Invention of the American Police State,” City Lab
  • Rick Rojas and Khorri Atkinson, “Five Days of Unrest That Shaped, and Haunted, Newark” The New York Times 
• Watch:
  • A look back at the Watts riots 50-years later

Midterm exam

Midterm exam  

Exam prompts will be available at 9:00 am on October 27 and end at 11:59 pm on the same day.

 

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