GE Cluster 66A,B,CW
Los Angeles: The Cluster
| Lecture Schedule: | Monday, Wednesday 11:00 a.m. – 12:15 a.m. – DeNeve Auditorium |
| Faculty: | Jan Reiff, History & Statistics Jack Katz, Sociology Jonathan Zasloff, Law |
Los Angeles: The Cluster will provide a three-quarter in-depth look at the city in which UCLA is located. Drawing on the concept of the city as a laboratory developed by sociologists at the University of Chicago almost a century ago and engaging with the different approaches for studying cities that have emerged since then, this course will ask students to investigate and engage with the urban area that will be their home for the next several years. As they do, they will come to understand the peoples, spaces, politics, and cultures of Los Angeles and its metropolitan region in both the present and the past, as well as Los Angeles’ place in an urban world. Five major questions will shape the course: How have history and geography shaped contemporary Los Angeles? How is Los Angeles alike and distinct from other cities in the United States and the rest of the world? How have different levels of government (federal, state, and local) shaped the city’s development and the lives of its residents? What is the match and mismatch of the dimensions of the region’s problems and the power structures to solve them? What cultural factors have shaped the identities of Los Angeles and which social interests maintain a stake in shaping those identities? How have the people of Los Angeles experienced and understood their city?
Course Format
During fall and winter quarters, students will attend two lectures weekly for the presentation of key concepts and content. These lectures are linked to weekly two-hour small-group discussion sections with Teaching Fellows, where the course material is examined in depth and integrated with various types of written assignments to enhance writing skills. As is appropriate for the study of LA, included in the first two quarters will be a film series looking at Los Angeles in film. Research and writing assignments have been designed to engage students directly with the city: a bus tour, research into a particular neighborhood’s past, interviews and ethnographic studies of its present, and an opportunity to suggest ways to shape its future.
Spring Seminars
A broad spectrum of small-group seminars are offered in the spring quarter, allowing for close interaction among students and with faculty. These seminars will also allow for interaction with the spaces and institutions of the city itself. Seminar topics currently under consideration include Hollywood; L.A. Sounds: The Musical Cultures of the City; Contested L.A.: Struggles for and in the Spaces of the City; Capturing LA in Words and Images; From Bel Air to Skid Row: Housing and Homeless in Los Angeles; Southern California and the Environment; Planning for 21st Century Los Angeles; Building the City: Architecture and Public Space in the City of the Angels; Low Riders, Deuce Coupes, Rolls Royces: Los Angeles and its Cars.
Foundation Area General Education Credit
Students who complete the three quarter sequence will satisfy 3 course requirements in the following GE areas: 2 courses in the Foundations of Society and Culture – Historical Analysis and Social Analysis – and 1 course in the Foundations of Arts and Humanities– Literary and Cultural Analysis.
