First Year: The Global City

Lay the Groundwork

Form tight bonds with your peers in a small, year-long course, focused on developing advanced writing skills through intensive study of the urban environment

The Global City introduces ways to think critically about the urban environment and the interdependence between the city and the global world. It begins with the study of representations and perceptions of the city, the city in historical context, and the processes that shape the city’s geopolitical manifestations.

This year-long sequence is designed to serve as a foundations course in the four-year University Honors College curriculum. Aimed at high achieving students entering the university as first-term first years, it provides the basic intellectual framework for the social, cultural, political, and material study of the urban environment. In addition, it provides and rehearses the reading and writing tools and skills necessary for the successful completion of a senior thesis.

Each section of the course will have different material, but the writing tools studied throughout the year are the same from section to section.

All freshmen begin with these courses, including those with college credit earned prior to high school graduation.

HON 101A, 102A, and 103A

Dr. William "Harry" York

In this section we will consider different representations of the city as a space for building diverse and inclusive communities as we develop methods for thinking about the modern geopolitical city. We will begin by developing a framework within which to consider the concept of the “imagined city” and the ways in which people of different backgrounds are incorporated into the city (or nation). We will explore the theme of identity formation within the city, including the ways in which concepts of self/otherness inform the ways in which ideas of citizenship are formed. What does it mean to become a citizen of a city? How is this citizenship performed? What does it mean to identify as an “urbanite” or “urban citizen?” How have people forged citizenship and identity in response to conquest and colonial oppression? Whose culture should shape citizenship and identity and how? How should we think about the process of self-identity formation in relation to that of shaping one’s identity as a member of an urban community?

We will approach these questions and others through an examination of the ancient city of Rome and the 20th-century city of Lagos, a city in Nigeria under British colonial rule. In all of our work, we will continue to think about the implications for our own day, as we seek to define “American” identities in the context of an increasingly urbanized and globalized world. Although many of our readings may focus on a city in ancient Europe, the themes we will explore are relevant today and students are encouraged to draw connections to contemporary issues in discussions.

HON 101B, 102B, and 103B

Dr. Paul McCutcheon

Thematically, this this section of the Global City will consider the transnational history of capitalism, colonialism, segregation, imperialism, settlement, protest, and political struggle to understand how something seemingly “local” in scale- like the events surrounding George Floyd’s death - connect to, and intersect with, systems and processes at the national and global scale. As we travel, we will consider the historical relationship between urban activism within communities of color to national and transnational movements. Our goal will be to understand how networks of racialized capital forged in the 17th century mapped themselves onto the contours of contemporary urban space.

This course is designed to help you develop the reading, writing, and analytical skills that will serve as a foundation for the Honors thesis- and for undergraduate and graduate work. Each term, we will focus on a specific set of linked reading-writing-analytic skills: summary of argument, explication, placement in relation to a discourse community.

You might think of Global City as a course designed to give you the tools to function as a scholar-in-training at the university. The texts we will read this year function to both help you learn the scholarly skills mentioned above and to provide the occasion for engaging in meaningful inquiry.

HON 101C, 102C, and 103C

Dr. Federico Perez

This year-long course is an exploration of the history, representations, and contemporary politics of global urbanism.

During the fall we examine the historical precedents of what we now call globalization. Focusing on the rise of European colonialism since the fifteenth century, we trace the power struggles––the forms of domination and modes of resistance––that have shaped cities across the globe and into the present.

In the winter we continue our exploration of global life in the aftermath of decolonial struggles and as Western imperialism was reconfigured across the globe. We pay especial attention to the urban violence and conflicts associated with rise of nationalism, ethnic and racial divisions, and deepening socioeconomic inequalities. Of particular interest during this term is how violence is represented in different genres and media and with what social and political implications.

Finally, in the spring we conclude our intellectual journey by considering the legacies of these global histories––the afterlives of colonialism––in contemporary battles over land and resources, racial and social justice, and political mobilization and citizenship. The course draws heavily on anthropology, history, urban studies, journalism, graphic non-fiction, and film. We will read about cities North and South, East and West.

HON 101D, 102D, and 103D

Dr. Eric Rodriguez

To many people in the United States of America, Portland is seen as a city in near constant conflict. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush referred to the city as “Little Beirut” (a reference to the Lebanese city rocked by civil war in the 80s). What is it about the city of Portland that has created this contentious reputation?

In this course, we will examine various texts, including treaties, manifestoes, and zines, to examine how writing practice, both analog and digital, affects representations and perceptions of Portland. We will examine the various ways state-sanctioned entities and activist networks engage in writing practice to assert power or animate communities to answer the following question: “How does writing change, both literally and metaphorically, urban environments?

HON 101E, 102E, and 103E

Dr. Rebecca Summer

This year-long course will encourage students to see American urban landscapes in new ways. We will start in the fall term with an exploration of how one’s identity and cultural history influence perceptions and experiences of the urban built environment. We will also establish the historical foundation and vocabulary to understand present-day racial and economic inequalities in American cities. We will ask questions like: How have different urban communities shaped and become shaped by city planning initiatives? In winter term, we will begin to critically question how we understand urban life through a variety of different media, including visual sources, quantitative representations, and the urban landscape itself. We will ask questions like: Who represents the city and why? Finally, in spring term, we will explore the relationships between American cities and global systems through the phenomena of urban environmental racism and environmental justice movements. We will ask questions like: How do environmental burdens connect urban neighborhoods to regional, national, and global networks? Students can expect to engage these questions through academic publications, film, photography, maps, and outdoor activities on the PSU campus and surrounding downtown Portland areas. Among the cities we will discuss are Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Portland.

HON 101F, 102F, and 103F

Dr. Amy Borden

At the beginning of the 20th century, a series of forces historians have named modernity reshaped urban life all over the globe. Emergent photochemical media: the flics and flickers, attractions and photoplays, serials and melodramas…the movies are intimately bound to early-twentieth century urban systems and cultures. Focused on Paris, New York/Hollywood, and Shanghai, we will study how films flowed on and as a global pathway circulating ideas such as Cosmopolitanism, colonialism, and the 1920s new woman. To consider their local and regional uses and the development of cinema as an urban industry, we will learn how to use the concept of vernacular modernism to highlight modernity’s cinematic material cultures. We also study discourse around the materiality of photochemical motion pictures as it publicly animated ideas about personhood, the material nature of bodies, and human perception, including international stars and the beginnings of modern celebrity culture. We will learn from international film and media studies scholars who have studied Chinese, French, and US national cinemas, concentrating on attractions-based melodramas and genre films, aka the popular cinema of the time. Our materials will be scholarly works of history and critical theory, films–many of which have only recently been restored and made available—and online film/media archives and databases to access ephemera and digitized film-adjacent materials to be used in our own scholarship.