Take a look at your city: urban sublime
2500-OG-EN-TLJC
The aim of the course is to analyze characteristic elements of a chosen city’s history, character, development, and contemporary life using methods of the urban sublime.
The following problems will be analyzed: technology in a city – contemporary reception and historical status: ideological/political/regional/national importance (and its changes), impact on city development, population movement, motivation for social/political engagement.
Each problem will be analyzed on chosen examples: New York, Moscow, Paris, Nancy (+region), Budapest, Warsaw, Torun (+region), Amsterdam, Tokyo, Kobe, Toronto. Analyses of the cities proposed by students are welcomed.
Fundamental features of the urban sublime are: ambivalence (fascination and fear simultaneously), three-stage experience – sensory perception, imagination, intellectualization, perception of the city landscape (architecture, sounds, historical buildings and new, sophisticated ones, nature/urbanism relations), industrial motives, social/political problems. The fundamental tradition of the sublime will be also reminded, as in the poetics of the urban sublime elements of nature turned into elements of the city landscape (but similar to elements of nature), such as, e.g., skyscrapers (former mountains), streets flanked by walls of buildings (former ravines), dynamic powers of nature turned into dynamics of city life (social – streams of people, human relations, political/ideological – emigrants, nations, minorities, political parties), and the uncanny turned into powers of economy, law regulations, social regulations etc.
Please note that the programme of the course is planned like any other individual set of subjects; however, it could be treated by students as study cases for some subjects in “Culture, City, Technology, and Emotions: Contemporary Sublime as a category of (de)construction” lecture.
Total student workload
Contact hours with teacher:
- participation in lectures - 20 hrs
- individual consultations with the lecturer - 8 hrs
Self-study hours:
- preparation for lectures - 10 hrs
- reading literature - 7 hrs
- preparation for test- 10 hrs
Total: 55 hrs (2 ECTS)
Learning outcomes - knowledge
W1 (K_W03): Student has a deep, detailed as well as systematized knowledge of significant authors, texts, and phenomena in the history of the Polish language and literature.
W2 (K_W04): Student has an advanced and systematized knowledge of literary and extra-literary (i.e. historical, philosophical, social, ideological, cultural) contexts of the European (English, French, Russian, Polish) literature that have contributed to its creation and reception.
W3 (K_W05): Student has a broad knowledge of methods for analyzing and interpreting literary texts from different historical periods.
W4 (K_W10): Student knows the characteristic features of oral and written texts as well as the mechanisms of text production; they know the procedures of text analysis and the principles behind the creation of texts of diverse functions.
Learning outcomes - skills
U1 (K_U01): Student searches for, analyzes, evaluates, selects, and consolidates information from electronic and written sources.
U2 (K_U02): Student is capable of observing and interpreting literary phenomena thoroughly as well as of analyzing their relationships with various spheres of culture.
U3 (K_U03): Student possesses advanced skills of literary analysis and interpretation; they are capable of referring to appropriate literary and extra-literary contexts in their analyses and interpretations.
U4 (K_U05): Student is able to thoroughly evaluate a literary text on their own; they point to its cognitive and artistic merit, being able to support their opinions with relevant arguments.
U5 (K_U14): Student can acquire knowledge on their own and develop their professional skills, making use of diverse sources (in their mother tongue as well as in foreign languages) and new technologies (ICT).
U6 (K_U15): Student can research into their fields of study as well as put into practice the knowledge and methodological tools they have familiarized themselves with.
Learning outcomes - social competencies
K1 (K_K01): Student is deeply aware of the importance of the Polish literature and of its role in the Polish and European culture.
K2 (K_K03): Student understands cultural pluralism.
K3 (K_K12): Student is aware of their responsibility for protecting the cultural heritage of Europe and the world; they take action in this respect.
Teaching methods
Expository teaching methods:
- seminar
- discussion
- brainstorming
- WebQuest
- participatory lecture
- description
- classic problem-solving
- problem-based lecture
Course coordinators
Assessment criteria
Assessment methods:
- active participation in class – 50%
- brief/ short presentations – 50%
fail- (50 %)
satisfactory- (51-60%)
satisfactory plus- (61-70%)
good - (71-83 %)
good plus- (84-94 %)
very good- (95-100 %)
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors,
localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: