Stories

September 12-23, 2024

This class aims to trace the history of higher education and its ongoing impact on the geography, economy, and culture of greater Philadelphia and U.S. urban space broadly.

This class investigates the unique history of housing in Philadelphia. We will cover the problems the city has faced and still faces in providing affordable housing, fair access to housing and creating diverse and vibrant neighborhoods and its great legacy of innovation in this area.

This course aims to look at the importance of access to finance to small businesses and low and moderate income households, identifies how and why this access is lacking and examines efforts to address this issues.

Drawing on the “music” side of the previously taught “Popular Music & Media” course, this course will investigate the history and contemporary conditions of music making in Philadelphia and its region.

This course will explore the deep history of dining in Philadelphia, from Lenape foodways to the skills of Hercules Posey – George Washington’s enslaved chef – to the recent participation of Philadelphia cooks and restaurateurs in social justice movements.

The aim of the course would be to examine the political and economic constraints generated by poverty and racial and class segregation in contemporary urban environments and how grassroots economic initiatives rooted in mutual aid often fill the gaps and provide alternative ways to meet needs and generate supportive community.

This course will cover, as the title suggests, the role of people and political organizations in Philadelphia in the 2024 Election as it is happening. We will work together to understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.

This course will explore the vibrant contemporary art world of the city of Philadelphia—a city uniquely positioned to attract artists with its many top-tier fine art schools, world-class museums, affordable living and studio spaces, and thriving network of artist-run galleries and exhibition spaces.

This inter-disciplinary upper-level seminar will explore the complex school policies, teacher instructional decisions, as well as historical, political, social, economic, cultural, and structural forces that have given rise to documented reality of the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

This course will examine the history of epidemic disease in American cities, with a focus on Philadelphia.

This course explores narrative and poetic forms and themes in hip-hop culture.