Courses

This seminar explores great writing about three important 19 th -century cities: Paris,Manchester, and London. The nineteenth-century was known as the age of great cities, and as such, witnessed an explosion of urban literature. This course will introduce you to major genres of city writing, including the novel, the poem, the physiognomy, the sociological inquiry, and the urban lyric. It will familiarize you with 19 th -century urban types: the concierge, the courtesan, the artist, the financier, the flâneur, the fashionista, the worker, the socialite, the sexual outlaw, and the urban eccentric. Readings will include recent scholarship on urban literature; classic essays about cities by writers including Walter Benjamin, Georg Simmel, and Jane Jacobs; and the following 19 th -century works: Cousin Bette (Balzac); The Kill (Zola); The Condition of the Working Class in England (Engels); Mary Barton (Gaskell); Bleak House (Dickens);  and selected poems by Amy Levy. Weekly writing assignments; an in-class presentation of a visualization; and three 8-10 page papers; no final exam.