Responding to the City:Imagined Pasts, Utopian Futures
This seminar surveys survey responses of artists, architects, archaeologists, and urban planners to increasing urbanization, from the rise of cities in the European Middle Ages to contemporary Chicago. Faced with industrialization, disease, and extreme wealth disparities, artists and thinkers responded by imagining utopian civic plans, reviving past relationships to urban space and the natural world, and embracing the frenetic chaos of urban life. We will engage with the Newberry Library’s strengths in early cartography, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the history of Chicago, and students will work directly with manuscripts, prints, and ephemera.
What is the Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar?
The Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar (NLUS) provides an opportunity for DePaul undergraduates to participate in an intensive seminar and produce an original research project using the world-renowned collections of the Newberry Library. This is an especially important opportunity for students considering graduate study in history or the humanities.
Up to five DePaul students will be selected to participate in this seminar along with students from UIC, Roosevelt, and Loyola universities. During the first part of the course, students investigate topics related to the seminar’s theme and work with the various types of resources that the Newberry has to offer. Then, under the guidance of the instructors and using primary sources from the Newberry, they select a topic to explore and develop into a research paper and presentation. The seminar is team-taught by instructors from different disciplines. (See below for more information on this year's instructors.)
This is a semester-long seminar that meets at the Newberry Library (Clark/Division stop on the CTA's Red line). Participating DePaul students will earn 9 hours of credit in two disciplines, enrolling in 4.5 credits during winter quarter and 4.5 credits in spring quarter. (Students must complete the semester-long course to receive credit for either quarter.) The two departments or programs in which the student earns credit for NLUS participation will be determined by the student in consultation with his or her advisor and the relevant departments or programs.
Participation in NLUS also can be used to satisfy the Liberal Studies "Experiential Learning" requirement.
DePaul applicants should go ahead and register for winter quarter as they would otherwise. They should nonetheless be prepared to drop one course and to make Tuesday and Thursday afternoons available if they are accepted into NLUS. Applicants will know by Thanksgiving if they have been accepted.
Domain Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- Students will use reflective writing to apply academic concepts from class readings, lectures, and discussions to their internship, fieldwork or service learning in the settings provided by the course.
- Students will reflect on and apply knowledge gained from their internship, fieldwork, or service learning to their understanding of the academic course content.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the ethics appropriate to the student's experiential placement.
- Synthesize and articulate how the ideas and experiences provided by the course might inform their personal, academic, and/or professional pursuits.
Special Note for History majors: Successful completion of the Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar in some cases can satisfy the gateway-capstone sequence requirement for HST majors (fulfilling the equivalent of a 300-level HST course and HST 390). For further information about this possibility, please contact Prof. Tikoff at vtikoff@depaul.edu.
For questions or more information
Contact Prof. Megan Heffernan at megan.heffernan@depaul.edu.