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

All first year students begin with HON 101 (even students who earned AP/IB credit in high school). This year-long sequence is designed to help you develop the reading, writing, and analytical skills that will serve as a foundation for the Honors thesis -- and for all your undergraduate and graduate work. Each term, we will focus on a specific set of linked skills: summary of argument, explication, placement in relation to a discourse community. The texts you will read both help you learn the scholarly skills and provide the occasion for engaging in meaningful inquiry.

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

Who Belongs in the City? (HON 101A)
This section of the Global City will focus on the relationship between groups in the 'imagined community' of the city. We will pay special attention to how specific communities and identities experience citizenship, discussing what it means to belong within the fabric of a city. With an interdisciplinary approach, we will also discuss examples of immigration and emigration to and from cities across the world.
Dr. Alberto Ganis
Meeting Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30pm-3:10pm
CRN: 11275

Uneven America (HON 101B)
This year-long course will encourage students to see American urban landscapes in new ways. We will explore how one’s identity and cultural history influence perceptions and experiences of the urban built environment. We will 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 explore the relationships between American cities and global systems through the phenomena of urban environmental racism and environmental justice movements.  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.
Dr. Rebecca Summer
Time:  Mondays and Wednesdays, 11am-12:40pm
CRN: 11276

Women in Middle Eastern Cities (HON 101C)
Focusing on questions of women and gender, this course invites the participants to reflect on women's experiences critically in modern Turkish, Arab, and Iranian contexts. We examine diverse experiences, observe connections to the United States, and explore how gender intersects with class, education, and ethno-religious standing, among others.
Dr. Pelin Basci
Time:  Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30pm-5:10pm
CRN: 11277

Race, Capital, and the City (HON 101D)
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. 
Dr. Paul McCutcheon
Time: Mondays and Wednesdays,1:30pm-3:10pm
CRN:  11278

Historical Narratives of the City as Contact Zone (HON 101E)
This Global City sequence takes an historical approach to analyzing the city as a space for shaping identity and social experiences. We will begin by considering the pre-modern cities of Rome and Tenochtitlan as spaces formed in moments of civil war and conquest. We'll proceed to the age of imperialism and consider the impact of colonialism in shaping London and Lagos. We'll conclude our historical survey by examining representations of cities in a decolonized future through the lens of science fiction. 
Dr. Harry York
Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00am-10:40am
CRN:  11279

Colonial Afterlives  (HON 101F)
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. 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. 
Dr. Federico Perez Fernandez
Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 9am - 10:40 am
CRN:  11280