Hong Kong Shue Yan University
Department of English Language & Literature
Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies
Course Title
: City, Space and Culture
Course Code
: ENG 505
Number of Credits
:3
Duration in Weeks
: 14
Contact Hours Per Week
: Lecture (2 Hours)
: Tutorial (1 Hour)
Pre-requisite(s)
: NIL
Prepared by
: Prof. WONG Kin Yuen
Course Description
Since the year 2005, more than half of the world’s population has been living in cities.
Transnational urbanism, therefore, has become an important area of studies which moves across
disciplines including architecture, geography, anthropology, media and communication studies
and sociology. This course adopts a cultural studies approach by focusing on how the modern
and postmodern city can be related to issues of class, gender and race. By drawing on a wide
range of key theoretical debates by distinguished scholars, and by reading and appreciating
chosen cultural texts both in print culture (i.e. novels, poetry and other writings) and media
culture (i.e. films, T.V. on-line materials), this course aims at providing students with insights
into how cultural identity is constructed for city dwellers. Students will tackle questions of
urban complexities by mapping and re-cognizing a variety of venues such as malls, heritage sites,
airports, casinos and theme parks, all forming a cityscape that illuminates the central importance
of place and space in urban culture. Concepts relating to, say, the postcolonial city, the
cosmopolitan city, the cinematic city, city for tourism, the festival/carnival city, the techno city
and green metropolis of the future will be explored in terms of sociocultural dynamics and
changes.
After the course, students are expected to have a comprehensive appreciation and understanding
of how urban space, time, value, meaning, community all form a complex structure of cultural
forces that guide the very processes that fashion our built environment. Such a recognition will
help students in dealing with educational modules such as technology and environment, personal
growth and globalization as stipulated for liberal studies for secondary school.
Course Outcomes, Teaching Activities and Assessment
1
Course Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
Upon completion of this course students should be able to:
ILO1
establish links between the studies of City Culture and English studies
across various existing disciplines
ILO2
widen the purview of literary studies by including cultural texts in both
print culture and media culture which are thematically related to urbanity
ILO3
present issues such as technology and environment, personal growth,
modern China, Hong Kong to-day and globalism as part of educational
modules recently developed in liberal studies for secondary schools in
Hong Kong
ILO4
evaluate how urban studies contributes to the construction of cultural
identity, and how it helps to nourish in Hong Kong youths to be responsible
citizens
ILO5
construct a framework to analyse the social dynamics and changes of
multiculturalism within the urban setting towards the future
Teaching and Learning Activities (TLAs)
TLA1
Introduction to the concept of city
TLA2
Close reading of articles
TLA3
Critical discussion
TLA4
In-class discussion
TLA5
Individual or Group field work
TLA6
Oral presentations by students
TLA7
Writing papers
Assessment Tasks (ATs)
AT1
AT2
AT3
In-class discussion
10%
Students are to respond actively to specific questions made by the
lecturer as well as participate in class discussion in either in lecture
or tutorial.
Oral presentation
30%
In a group of 3-4, students are to deliver an oral presentation on a
specific topic which can demonstrate their understanding of the
issue(s) and concepts(s) discussed in this course. Also, at the end of
the presentation there will be time for class discussion.
Site visit report
20%
In a group of 3-4, students are to choose a specific place for site
visit and write a report which can demonstrate their application of
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theories acquired in this course.
Final written project
40%
Students are to write a research paper which can demonstrate a
solid grasp of issue(s) and concept(s) taught in the course. The
research paper has to be a critical analysis of specific topic and
adopt a problem-solving approach which can demonstrate students’
ability of critical thinking and analysis.
TOTAL 100%
AT4
Alignment of Course Intended Learning Outcomes, Teaching and Learning Activities
and Assessment Tasks
Course Intended Learning
Outcomes
Teaching and Learning
Activities
Assessment Tasks
ILO1
TLA1,3,4,7
AT1,3,4
ILO2
TLA6,7
AT4
ILO3
TLA1,2,3,4,6,7
AT1,2,4
ILO4
TLA4,5,6,7
AT1,2,3,4
ILO5
TLA2,3,5,7
AT3,4
Course Outline
Week 1 Introduction and Theory
The geohistory of cities, the urbanization process; theorizing the city
“Max Weber, ‘Concepts and Categories of the City’,” Philosophy and the City, pp.102-109.
Margaret Atwood’s “The City Planners” (poetry)
Edgar Allan Poe, “The City in the Sea” (poetry)
Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (poetry)
John Updike, “The City,” The Penguin Book of the City. Ed. Robert Drewe. London:
Penguin Books. pp. 8-32.
Reference: The Roman Holiday (movie), The Funny Face (movie)
Week 2 “Putting Cities First,” in Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions
Edward W. Soja, pp.19-49. Theorizing the City, Setha M. Law, pp.1-33.
Mark Hunter, “The Emergence of Cities,” Experiencing Cities, pp.22-39.
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William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper” (poetry)
William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” “Composed
upon Westminister Bridge,” “London” (poetry)
Week 3
Postcolonial City
“Introduction: Post-colonialising Urban Studies,” Jennifer Robinson, Ordinary Cities:
Between Modernity and Development, pp.1-12.
“Geographies with a Difference? Citizenship and Difference in Postcolonial Urban Spaces,”
By Mark McQuinness. Postcolonial Geographies, ed. pp.99-114.
Mark Hunter, Experiencing Cities, pp.122-128.
Jane M. Jacobs , “(Post) Colonial Spaces”, Edge of Empire; Postcolonialism and the City,
pp.13-37.
Reference:
David C. Thorns, The Transformation of Cities: Urban Theory and Urban Life, pp.68-95.
The Chinese Box (movie)
Week 4
The Postmodern City
Michael Dear & Steven Flusty, “The Postmodern Urban Condition”, Spaces of Culture:
City-Nation-World, pp.64-85.
Peter Wollen, “Blade Runner: ‘Ridleyville” and Los Angeles”, The Hieroglyphics of
Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis, pp.236-243.
References: Blade Runner (movie), Strange Days (movie)
Weeks 5 & 6
Postmodernism, Consumption and the City
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic and Late Capitalism,”
Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. Thomas Docherty, pp.62-92.
David B. Clarke, “Consumption and the City, Modern and Postmodern,” The Consumer
Society and the Postmodern City, pp.73-95.
Wong Kin Yuen, “Sight Being Site: An Analysis of Hong Kong Times Square,” Hong
Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin. No. 8-9. Spring/Summer 1998, pp.65-74.
Reference: Ghost in the Shell (movie)
Week 7
The Festival/Carnival City
David C. Thorns, “Consumption and Urban Culture.” The Transformation of Cities,
pp.120-148.
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John Hannigan, “Shopertainment, Entertainment, Edutainment: Synergies and Syntheses in
the Themed Environment,” Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern
Metropolis, pp.81-100.
Week 8
Urban Tourism
Susan S. Faintein & Dennis R. Judd, “Global Forces, Local Strategies, and Urban Tourism,”
The Tourist City, pp.1-17.
Susan S. Faintein & Dennis R. Judd, “The City: Strategic Site for the Global Entertainment
Industry”, The Tourist City, pp.143-154.
Umberto Eco, “The City of Robots,” Postmodernism: A Reader, pp.200-205.
Iris M. Young, “City Life As a Normative Ideal”, Philosophy and the City, pp.163-174.
Boey Kim Cheng’s “The Planners” (poetry)
Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California” (poetry)
Joan Didion, (1997) “L.A. Noir,” The Penguin Book of the City. Ed. Robert Drewe. London:
Penguin Books. pp. 225-236.
Banana Yoshimoto, “Newlywed,” The Penguin Book of the City. Ed. Robert Drewe.
London: Penguin Books. pp. 33-46.
Reference: Chungking Express (movie)
Week 9
Gender and the City
Mark Hunter, “Gender in the City,” Experiencing Cities, pp.264-289.
Jane Rendell, “Introduction: ‘Gender, Space’” Gender Space Architecture: An
Interdisciplinary Introduction, pp.101-111.
Doreen Massey, “Space, Place and Gender” Gender Space Architecture: An
Interdisciplinary Introduction, pp.128-133.
Kristine B. Miranne and Alma H. Young, “Introduction.” Gendering the City, pp.1-16.
Week 10
The Technocity
Nigel Thrift, “Inhuman Geographies: Landscapes of Speed, Light & Power,” The
Cybercities Reader, pp.39-43.
J.O. Wheeler, Y. Aoyama and B. Warf, “Introduction: City Space, Industrial Space, and
Cyberspace,” Cities in the Telecommunications Age: The Fracturing of Geographies,
pp.3-17.
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Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift, “The Machinic City,” Cities: Reimagining The Urban,
pp.78-104.
Salman Rushdie, “The Free Radio,” The Penguin Book of the City. Ed. Robert Drewe.
London: Penguin Books. pp. 79-91.
Reference: Simon Bell, “Technocities and Development: Images of Inferno and Utopia,”
Technocities, pp.153-167.
Week 11
The Global City
Gary Bridge, “Reason in the City of Difference,” Reason in the City of Difference, pp.1-14.
“Cosmopolitan Reason and the Global City,” Reason in the City of Difference, pp.147-158.
Jennifer Robinson, “World Cities, or a World of Ordinary Cities?” Ordinary Cities,
pp.93-115.
Gabriel Garcia Márquez, “The Woman Who Came at Six O’Clock,” The Penguin Book of
the City. Ed. Robert Drewe. London: Penguin Books. pp.263-279.
Reference: Lost in Translation (movie)
Week 12
The Future of Cities
David Owen, “The Shape of Things to Come,” Green Metropolis, pp.265-324.
Doug Saunders, Arrival City, pp.1-27; pp.58-63; pp.108-114.
Scott McQuire, “Liquid Cities,” The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space,
pp.87-110.
Lewis Shiner, (1991) “White City,” The Year’s Best Science Fiction. New York: St.
Martin’s Press. pp. 517-522.
Week 13
The Sustainable City
Andre Blowers and Kathy Pain, “The Unsustainable City?” Unruly Cities? Pp.247-260;
265-272; 284-294.
David C. Thorns, “The Sustainable City,” The Transformation of Cities, pp.203-227.
Week 14 Recapitulation
Academic Honesty
You are expected to do your own work. Dishonesty in fulfilling any assignment undermines
the learning process and the integrity of your college degree. Engaging in dishonest or
unethical behavior is forbidden and will result in disciplinary action, specifically a failing grade
on the assignment with no opportunity for resubmission. A second infraction will result in an F
for the course and a report to College officials. Examples of prohibited behavior are:
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
Cheating – an act of deception by which a student misleadingly demonstrates that s/he has
mastered information on an academic exercise. Examples include:


Copying or allowing another to copy a test, quiz, paper, or project
Submitting a paper or major portions of a paper that has been previously submitted for
another class without permission of the current instructor


Turning in written assignments that are not your own work (including homework)
Plagiarism – the act of representing the work of another as one’s own without giving credit.

Failing to give credit for ideas and material taken from others

Representing another’s artistic or scholarly work as one’s own
Fabrication – the intentional use of invented information or the falsification of research or
other findings with the intent to deceive

To comply with the University’s policy, all written assignments have to be submitted to
VeriGuide.
Resources
Primary Texts
Amin, Ash and Thrift, Nigel (2002)
Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Cambridge: Polity
Blowers, Andrew and Pain, Kathy, “The Unsustainable City?” Unruly Cities? Ed. Steve Pile et al.
London & New York: Routledge, pp.247-298.
Bridge, Gary. (2005) Reason in the City of Difference: Pragmatism, Communicative Action
and Contemporary Urbanism. London and New York: Routledge.
Clarke, David B. (2003)
York: Routledge.
The Consumer Society and the Postmodern City. London & New
Dear, Michael & Flusty, Steven (1999) Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. Ed. Mike
Featherstone and Scott Lash. London: Sage, pp.64-85.
Downey, John and McGuigan, Jim Ed. (1999)
Technocities. London: Sage.
Eco, Umberto (1993) “The City of Robots.” Postmodernism: A Reader. Ed. Thomas Docherty.
New York: Columbia UP, pp.200-205.
Fainstein, Susan S. & Judd, Dennis R. Judd (1999)
Yale UP, pp.1-17.
The tourist City. New Haven and London:
Hannigan, John (1998) Fantasy city: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis.
London & New York; Routledge.
Hunter, Mark (2012) Experiencing Cities 2nd Ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Jacobs, Jane M. (1996) Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London & New York:
Routledge.
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Jameson, Fredric. (1993) “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.”
Postmodernism: a Reader. Ed. Thomas Docherty, New York: UP New York, pp.62-92.
Low, Setha M. (1999)
Rutgers UP.
Theorizing the City: The New Urban anthropology Reader. London;
Massey, Doreen (2000) “Space, Place and Gender.” Gender Space Architecture: An
Interdisciplinary Introduction. Ed. Jane Rendell et al. London & New York: Routledge,
pp.128-133.
McGuinness, Mark. (2002) “Geographies with a difference? Citizenship and Diffrernce in
Postcolonial Space, Postcolonial Geographies, ed. A. Blunt & C. McEwan. New York &
London: Continuum, pp.99-114.
McQuire, Scott (2008)
The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space. London: Sage.
Meagher, Sharon M. Ed. (2008)
Philosophy and the City. Albany: State U. of New York P.
Miranne, Kristine B. and Young, Alma H. (2000) Gendering The City: Women, Boundaries,
and Visions of Urban Life. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Owen, David. (2009) Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less
Are the Keys to Sustainability. New York: Riverhead Books.
Rendell, Jane (20000 “Introduction: Gender, Space,” Gender Space Architecture: An
Interdisciplinary Introduction. Ed. Jane Rendell et al. London & New York: Routledge,
pp.101-111.
Robinson, Jennifer. (2006)
New York: Routledge.
Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London &
Sassen, Saskia & Roost, Frank. (1999)
pp.143-154.
Saunders, Doug. (2011)
The Tourist City. New Haven and London: Yale UP,
Arrival City. London: Windmill Books.
Soja, Edward W. (2000) Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Thorns, David C. (2002) The Transformation of Cities: Urban Theory & Urban Life. New
York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Thrift, Nigel (2004) “Inhuman Geographies: Landscapes of Speed, Light and Power,” The
Cybercities Reader, Ed. Stephen Graham. London: Routledge, pp.39-43.
Wheeler, James O., Aoyama, Yuko, Warf, barney (2000) Cities in the Telecommunications
Age: The Fracturing of Geographies. New York and London: Routledge.
Wollen, Peter. (2002) “Blade Runner: ‘Ridleyville’ and Los Angeles,” The Hieroglyphics of
Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis. Ed. Neil Leach. London New York:
Routledge.
Wong, Kin Yuen (1998) “Sight Being site: an analysis of Hong Kong Times Square,” Hong
Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin, No. 8-9. Spring/Summer, pp.65-74.
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