Spring 2016

Topic: The City as a Global Phenomenon

Director:  Daniel Chambliss, Professor  of Sociology
Phone: 315-859-4291
E-mail:  dchambli@hamilton.edu

For thousands of years, cities have been melting pots of peoples, economies and cultures. The explosion of truly international capitalist economies in the 21st century has produced global cities – New York, London, Tokyo – in which the attentive student can find at close range the intricate connections between how the world at large works and how macrolevel forces play out in the lives of individual people on the street, at work and in their homes. This program will offer students both a wide-ranging vision of how cities have developed throughout history and across the world, as well as allowing closeup studies of urban life.  Courses will be supplemented by a variety of group activities and field trips designed to explore the rich offerings of New York City.

College 398 Seminar in Global Processes: The Global City

This course will explore the phenomenon of cities, using both historical and comparative examples, including writings of Georg Simmel and Louis Wirth, Jane Jacobs, Herbert Gans, Harvey Molotch, and Douglas Massey, up to the recent pathbreaking work of Saskia Sassen.  Topics will include immigration, poverty, residential segregation, urban economics and the sociology of urban life. 

College 396 Independent Study

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper (30 pages) that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

College 397 Internship

Work experience during four days a week that includes a journal or written account of that experience.

College 395 Urban Ethnography

This is a fieldwork course in ethnographic research, wherein students will spend time in various settings throughout New York City, learning how to systematically observe people in order to understand their lives. Students will choose many of the settings themselves, giving them a chance to get to know urban places and events they may be interested in. New York offers a vast range of interesting locales, giving students the chance both to learn about new places as well as practice these classic methods of social science research.