The lecture provides an overview addressing contemporary theories of space, which are debated in the field of urban studies and sociology of space first and foremost against the background of current discussions in the social sciences and humanities through the lense of everyday life.
More precisely, social, cultural and politcal theorizations of space will be related to contemporary praxis of urban develpment, to planning approaches in different cities world wide and to planning theories. These will be addressed by taking different conceptions of the city as a starting point.
Lecture Unit 0 Kick-Off
Lecture Unit 1 Space, Place and Planning Theory – An Introduction
This lecture unit explains how theorizing space has always been central to poststructuralist perspectives that have identified planning as governmentality and which have traced basic shifts in planning theories and how they have addressed space in different eras.
Lecture Unit 2 Theories of Space and Housing (Güntner/Reutlinger)
Lecture Unit 3 Everyday Life and The Public City
This lecture unit explains how theorizing space as relational public space has been formative for those accounts in the social sciences and humanities interested in the study of everyday life and lived space. It shows, how these thoughts have resonated also partly in planning theories 20 years ago, and states that planning theory is currently very much embracing critiques of everyday life and lived space in a decade of crises, disruption and urban unsettling.
Lecture Unit 4 Geographies of Encounter and The Ordinary City
This lecture unit emphasizes the ordinary and relational dimension of space as lived space characterized by difference. It addresses a related body of geographical thought focusing on geographies of encounter and connects these to ideas about ordinary cities as sites of ordinary planning.
Lecture Unit 5 Lived Space and The Embodied City
This lecture unit emphasizes the ordinary and relational dimension of space as lived space characterized by difference. It addresses a related body of geographical thought focusing on geographies of encounter and connects these to ideas about ordinary cities as sites of ordinary planning.
Lecture Unit 6 Global Urban Restructuring and the Insurgent City
This lecture unit involves with a body of literature that empirically track down patterns of global (urban) restructuring in different cities and which develop a conceptualization of resistance and insurgencies to add new perspectives into urban studies and planning theory. Conceptualizing space as always emerging and messy, ordinary and contested is at the heart of approaches focusing on insurgents and insurgencies.
Lecture Unit 7 Individualization and The Entrepreneurial City
This lecture unit highlights a key concept that has emerged in Western cities and that has rendered space as place of individuals, individualism and individualization. Especially market-oriented conceptions to theorize space and planning have highlighted the idea of individual freedom over (individual, collective) equality and have produced new entrepreneurial scripts for urban futures that until today remain highly contested due to their social, political, cultural and ecological shortcomings.
Lecture Unit 8 Urban Resistance and the Neoliberal City
This lecture unit highlights a key concept that has emerged in Western cities and that has rendered space as place of individuals, individualism and individualization. Especially market-oriented conceptions to theorize space and planning have highlighted the idea of individual freedom over (individual, collective) equality and have produced new entrepreneurial scripts for urban futures that until today remain highly contested due to their social, political, cultural and ecological shortcomings.
Lecture Unit 9 Urban Emancipation and the Post-Political City
This lecture unit delineates how theorizing space has always been central to the urban study of politics, the political and democracy.
Lecture Unit 10 Urban Studies and the Post-Colonial City
This lecture unit explores how theorizing space has always been central to postcolonial accounts in the field of urban studies and planning theory.
Lecture Unit 11 Urban Crises and the City of Care
This lecture unit addresses the pros and cons of a strictly crisis-centered reading of urban space and urban care debate particularly during the last decade. It introduces conceptions of space based on affect and opportunities for meaningful human and beyond-human encounters in space and offers some ideas how specific groups, e.g. people living with dementia, use everyday urban spaces, and how planning can learn from their practices and needs
Lecture Unit 12 Closing and Retrospective - Theories of Space and Planning Theories
This lecture provides a concluding retrospective of all presented theories of space, city conceptions and planning theories. It will offer space for open question and to address new demands for theorizing space, planning and everyday life.
