Subhashitha H N

2599

The idea of relationship of cities with nature is symptomatic of our larger civilisational trajectories and is very telling of the directions where our society is headed. More often than not, the debate about nature and cities seems rhetorical and lacks strong theoretical and historical perspective. This particular course wishes to address this concern by providing a strong method to the students to understand and critique the idea of nature in cities. The course introduces students to the historic relation of cities with their immediate natural surroundings and how it changes across cultures and different geographies. They will learn to understand different schools of thought in this area and how scholars have taken a variety of position in this debate and they will learn how to read layers of nature in cities through secondary data sets. Through the live example of Vadodara, the varied relationship between nature and cities will be understood with the help of rigorous field documentation, mapping and interpretation. The intent of this course is to prepare students to think through their research interests, frame their research ideas with clarity, conduct field work and learn to document, map and interpret field work and write about their learnings.