Geography

UCL

The world is a rapidly urbanising place. A process that does not happen uniformly across the globe with diverging results through geographical contexts. But what exactly constitutes the urban and what makes up a city?

In this UCL Geography Summer School, we will approach the idea of the city as the epicentre of articulations of 'natural' and social relations, relations that are not fully contained within the place itself. This Summer School will give you a taste of what studying Geography is like at undergraduate level here at UCL. You will begin with exploring the multiplicity of the urban in urban studies literature, by examining what urbanisation means to the governments, businesses and people whose lives are affected by changes to the built environment of cities and to the ecosystems that support them. The aim is to explore all the possible perspectives from which we can address the cities we live in, not as something closed or bounded - which, politically, lays the ground for critiques of exclusivity. The city has long been a strategic site for the exploration of major subjects confronting society.

This interactive course will allow you to take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding cities today on a variety of topics aiming to highlight the diverse experiences of the urban across different contexts and through different perspectives within geography. It will include a diverse series of university-style seminars and will include topics ranging from political uncertainty to infrastructure and informality. You will study this topic by analysing three world cities as case studies. These will be London, Taipei, and Lilongwe. The Summer School will culminate in a participatory workshop which invites you to examine cities as places that are not 'given' but always in an open-ended process through interactive drawing sessions.

07 August 2023 - 11 August 2023

20 PROGRAMME PLACES

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS: