Courses

This course examines visual culture and urban spaces, beginning with what makes a city? What makes a neighborhood? We will situate our inquiries within the context of Spanish and Portuguese colonial expansion to Asia and the Americas to analyze the emergence of the metropolis as a center for the slave trade activities, mercantilism, and colonial administration. We will study the early modern rise of Spanish and Portuguese colonial settlements in Manila, Goa, Havana, Lima, and Rio de Janeiro, among other places. We will engage with theories of visual culture and urban design, and consider the politics of urban planning, segregation, dispossession, and memory.