Metropolis: City in World History
A-
AY21/22 S2
Haiya I put too much effort into this course but still A- only. The course is all about the different ways cities are important to societies. Be it cultural, political, economical, or technological, cities around the world become popular for different reasons. Lots of case studies are given, including Manchester, London, Edo, Angkor Wat, Istanbul, Amsterdam and Melaka, each revolving around a particular theme.
There were many profs teaching this course, each talking about their city of expertise. There's basically no lectures, but instead all content is recorded beforehand. It's quite nice to watch actually, as the profs are quite passionate about their cities of interest. This is a fact that they keep bringing up in tutorials as well, as my tutor keeps talking about his home city, to give us a clearer example of the concepts.
There are 4 assignments in total, and with tutorial participation, these make up the entirety of your grade. No exam. The first assignment is about selecting a picture of a city and writing a summary about it. What does the picture say about the city? What concepts can you pick up from the lectures? Those types of questions.
The second assignment was a documentary critique. They give you around 4 documentaries for you to choose from, then you watch it and write around 600 words about it. The documentaries are like those you'd find on History channel, around 1 hour each. For the critique, you HAVE TO write about both the positives and the negatives. What did the documentary capture accurately about the city? What did they leave out? How does this lead back to the lectures? Why is this documentary significant or insignificant? Don't just applaud it. It's a critique for a reason.
The last two assignments are basically just one. It is a creative works assignment, which means you have to create a piece of literature about a city of your choise (no, it can't be Singapore). You have quite a few options to pick from. You can choose to do up a poster, a personal recount, a narrative, a travelogue/travel guide. Quite a lot of freedom. But remember, you always have to link back to the content in the lectures. You are given 1500 words in total. If you're writing a short story, then it's 600 words for the story and 900 words for the write up. Be sure to add lots of references to your work, as they help add credibility.