Introduction to the history and interpretation of western art in a global context that explores painting, graphic arts and sculpture from the 15th century to the present. Engages diverse methodological perspectives to examine changing conceptions of art and the artist, and to investigate the plural meaning of artworks within the larger contexts of culture and history.

According to some scientists we are at the beginning of the ‘sixth extinction process.’ No-one seems to really care too much. After all what are we to do. One of the problems is that it seems to be easier to imagine the cosmos - and for some even God - than it is to imagine the nature and history of our species despite the thousands years of pontificating on the subject. We seem to have something missing in our cognitive bandwidth. But we all know what is coming. “She went for a Walk on the Beach and found a Rare “Doomsday Fish’” was a recent headline in the New York Times. Our end is now everyday news. The seminar/workshop will research the problem, myth, and the very probable reality of human extinction. Students will be expected to develop a project that explores these conditions, whether on a real or fictive site or as an exhibition.

Required for doctoral students in HTC as a prerequisite for work on the doctoral dissertation. Prior to candidacy, doctoral students are required to write and orally defend a proposal laying out the scope of their thesis, its significance, a survey of existing research and literature, the methods of research to be adopted, a bibliography and plan of work. Work is done in consultation with HTC Faculty, in accordance with the HTC PhD Degree Program guidelines.

Contemporary urban theory and studies of the city generally tend to revolve around the examination of issues: inequality (economic, ethnic, gendered); the role of various “-isms”  (capitalism, liberalism, neoliberalism, colonialism, etc.); Foucauldian ideas of biopolitics and territory; migration of various sorts; environmental factors; data. Very few analyses appear to take stock—and in many cases demonstrate much understanding— of how cities work, i.e. the mechanisms and institutional structures through which all the above issues manifest themselves. This course is designed as a historical and theoretical introduction to the basic mechanisms that govern the making and working of cities, which otherwise, given their large variety and unevenness of types, defy any viable ontological definition (hence the title above). Through a series of case studies showing the evolution of these features across the world, successive weeks are designed to take seminar participants through a step-by-step understanding of the functional elements that make up a city: the idea of economic base (entrepots, industry, services, markets, and so on); interest groups; the making of land markets; legal statutes as to property and jurisdiction; the basis of authority; rent gradients (their invention and spread across the world); the political economy of transportation and logistics; fiscal structure and revenue (including zoning); the provenance of projects; security (police, fire and hygiene risks); and the institutional economics of (biopolitical) provision (housing, utilities, schooling, etc.). Students taking the course can expect themselves to be equipped with a technical, if not entirely neutral, grammar that will enable them to assess their interest in issues with the actual mechanics of urban functioning or dysfunctioning, as the case may be.