Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC2109: Politics in a Global Urban Age

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

Module Aims

This module aims to introduce and analyze political debates within interdisciplinary research on the global urban transition. We will connect key disciplinary concepts, arguments, and authors in Politics and International Relations to the burgeoning interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical research on global cities, global urbanization, planetary urbanization, assemblage urbanism, urbanisms in the Global South, and feminist and decolonial urbanisms, amongst other literatures. This module will enable you to analyze claims about global urbanism in relation to contemporary politics and to engage in place-specific debates about urbanization and urban transitions as debates about political futures. Additionally, this module aims to support connections between practical and theoretical learning by including a local field-trip.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.

On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Describe and critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of some major theoretical approaches to the politics of the global urban transition.
2. Explain some of the theoretical and practical challenges of developing political analyses of the global urban transition and evaluate how well some approaches address these challenges.
3. Analyze competently a particular case of ‘urban’ transition as a site of political debate.
Discipline-Specific Skills4. Synthesize and critically assess components of a defined field of political research competently.
5. Demonstrate the capacity to revise political concepts to account for new fields of theoretical and empirical research.
6. Engage competently with interdisciplinary research and discuss the some elements of the significance of this work for analyses of contemporary political life.
Personal and Key Skills7. Work independently and in groups to engage in spontaneous discussion and defence of arguments in class, to prepare presentations for class discussion, and to contribute to a productive classroom.
8. Work independently to research, formulate, write, and present analyses that engage a reasonable mix of theoretical and empirical content.
9. Develop an open approach to intellectual work through periodic review assessments of module content, including field excursions.
10. Develop a self-reflexive academic practice that is both independent and collaborative, including: identifying goals and work plans, integrating feedback, and envisioning possible future work.