Arts & Humanities Compass Course

THIS COURSE explores three world cities located across the breadth of Asia and Europe, retracing the stories, myths, symbols and fantasies which Shanghai, St. Petersburg and Berlin have inspired. Does each of these cities have its own story? What were its cultural forms? How did these cities come to embody the thrills and challenges of modern life? Were they able to satisfy the hopes and aspirations of a large and diverse urban citizenry? How did urban culture and national history become intertwined? In what ways did each city become a cradle of mass politics, shaping the major political and economic systems of the twentieth century: capitalism, communism, and fascism? Over the semester we will examine representations of each city and the cultural production of its inhabitants, across two centuries, in multiple genres ranging
from literature and cinema to architecture, monuments, and memoir.