Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Module Catalogue

HI2F8-15 The Right to the City: United States Urban History in the 20th Century

Department
History
Level
Undergraduate Level 2
Module leader
Timo Schrader
Credit value
15
Module duration
10 weeks
Assessment
100% coursework
Study location
University of Warwick main campus, Coventry

Download as PDF

Introductory description

America is an urban nation today, yet Americans have long had deeply ambivalent feelings toward the city. This 15 CATS module will explore the historical origins of that ambivalence - and how historians have interpreted it over time - by tracing several overarching themes in American urban history with emphasis on the twentieth century.

Module web page

Module aims

Topics will include race and class relations, gender and sexual identity, immigration, politics and policy, violence and crime, tourism, and the future of urban America. Discussions will revolve around these broad themes as well as regional distinctions between American cities.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

  1. Urban dreams and urban nightmares
  2. Gender and class at the turn of the century
  3. Immigration and reform in the twentieth century city
  4. Postwar urban politics on the right
  5. The fire this time: inequality in the post-1960 metropolis
  6. Policing the city
  7. Urban subcultures and radical countercultures
  8. Gentrification, or, how to kill a city
  9. 21st century urban protest

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of US history at large, including key historical moments such as early 20th century migration, the New Deal, post-war politics on the left and right, and the 1960s and 1970s rights revolutions. This will allow you to historicize contemporary US debates about gentrification, (im)migrants, refugees, environmental protests, and social justice movements.
  • Develop a basic knowledge of the ways in which class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality intersect to complicate our understanding of social movements, urban policy, and contesting views of the city.
  • Communicate ideas and findings through oral and written discussion, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
  • Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material, showing an appreciation of the possibilities and limitations of analysing primary sources relating to the history of cities, including ephemera, governmental and municipal documents, and media.
  • Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship, drawing upon scholarship from urban historians as well as historians of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
  • Act with limited supervision and direction to explore topics and themes of interest within defined guidelines in order to develop individual research skills, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.

Study time

Type Required
Seminars 9 sessions of 2 hours (12%)
Private study 132 hours (88%)
Total 150 hours

Private study description

History modules require students to undertake extensive independent research and reading to prepare for seminars and assessments. As a rough guide, students will be expected to read and prepare to comment on three substantial texts (articles or book chapters) for each seminar taking approximately 3 hours. Each assessment requires independent research, reading around 6-10 texts and writing and presenting the outcomes of this preparation in an essay, review, presentation or other related task.

Costs

No further costs have been identified for this module.

You must pass all assessment components to pass the module.

Assessment group A
Weighting Study time Eligible for self-certification
Assessment component
Seminar contribution 10% No
Reassessment component
1000 word reflection Yes (extension)
Assessment component
Oral presentation 40% No
Reassessment component
1500 word reflection Yes (extension)
Assessment component
3000 word essay 50% Yes (extension)
Reassessment component is the same
Feedback on assessment

Written comments on essays plus individual feedback during office hours, especially for the oral presentations.

Courses

This module is Optional for:

  • Year 2 of UENA-VQ32 Undergraduate English and History

This module is Option list A for:

  • Year 2 of UHIA-V1V5 Undergraduate History and Philosophy

This module is Option list B for:

  • Year 2 of UHIA-VM11 Undergraduate History and Politics

This module is Option list C for:

  • Year 2 of UHIA-V100 Undergraduate History
  • Year 2 of UHIA-VL13 Undergraduate History and Sociology