Sociology 143: Urban Sociology C. Chase-Dunn

Fall 2015 Tuesday-Thursday 11:10-12:30 Sproul 1102

(v.9/28/15) Lecture, 3 hours; extra reading, 3 hours; Prerequisite(s): SOC 001 or SOC 001H or consent of instructor. A comparative examination of settlements with emphasis on the processes of urbanization and sociocultural evolution. Cross-listed with URST 143.

This course is about the emergence of sedentism, the invention of towns and cities, the interactions between sedentary and nomadic peoples, and the institutional responses to the problems created when humans reside close to one another. Topics covered are: hamlets, settlement systems, ancient cities, and the interactions of city and country. We will also study industrial urbanization, megacities and the urbanization of the global system with its world cities tightly linked by communications, transportation, trade and organization. Contemporary urban issues in Southern California and other regions will also be considered. The course will employ the comparative world-systems perspective to examine urban problems since the invention of sedentism.

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Art Crimes

This is primarily a reading and lecture course. Assigned readings should be completed by the date under which they appear. Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are required. Others are recommended. Grading is based on the midterm (30%), the final (30%), the term paper (25%) and attendance (15%).

A primer on the modern world-systems perspective is Thomas Richard Shannon’s An Introduction to the World-Systems Perspective (Westview 1996). Used copies are widely available.

The Urban Studies Reader is at https://irows.ucr.edu/cd/courses/143/urbstudstoc.htm

The following books are available at the University Book Store and are on reserve:

Mario Liverani,2006 Uruk: the first city. Shefield: Equinox

Mike Davis, 2006 City of Quartz. London: Verso

Thomas C. Patterson 2015 From Acorns to Warehouses Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Andrew Ross 2011 Bird On Fire. New York: Oxford University Press.

Thursday September 24: Overview of course.

September 29 the comparative world-systems perspective

*C. Chase-Dunn and T.D. Hall, “Global social change in the long run” (in Urban Problems Reader)

October 1 Settlement Geography: World-systems of nomads; The rise of sedentism: diversified foragers; Settlement systems: hamlets, villages and towns; Settlement size distributions; nucleation, central place theory

*C. Chase-Dunn, “The role of ecosettlement systems in social evolution” in Urban Studies Reader,

Michael E. Smith “Sprawl, squatters and sustainable cities” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20:2, 2010;

Peopling the Earth https://www.facebook.com/businessinsider/videos/vb.20446254070/10152823614039071/?type=1&theater

Early settlements in the Fertile Crescent

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-014-9072-2/fulltext.html

October 6 more settlement geography: The settlement systems of complex chiefdoms; The limits of settlement size; High-density and low-density settlements; The metabolism of cities

*Drennan RD, Peterson CE (2006) “Patterned variation in prehistoric chiefdoms”. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103: 3960–3967; http://www.pnas.org/content/103/11/3960.full

Patrick Kirch, The Evolution of Polynesian Chiefdoms

David G. Anderson, The Savannah River Chiefdoms

Jill E. Neitzel (ed.) Great Towns and Regional Polities in the Prehistoric American Southwest and Southeast. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

David A. Gregory and David R. Wilcox (eds.) Zuni Origins (Arizona 2007)

Abel Wolman, “The metabolism of cities.” Science 1965

Kenneth Boulding, “The city as an element in the international system.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fall, 1968.

October 8: The emergence of cities

*Christopher Chase-Dunn, Daniel Pasciuti, Alexis Alvarez and Thomas D. Hall “ The ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian world-systems”

Mario Liverani, Uruk: the first city.

Guillermo Algaze, The Uruk World-System

Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford 1997)

Kasja Ekholm-Friedman, “On the evolution of global systems, part 1: the Mesopotamian heartland” Pp. 153-168 in Robert A. Denemark et al (eds.) World System History (Routledge 2000).

October 13 : Cities and Empires: power and size, urban upsweeps, Estimating the population sizes of cities

*C. Chase-Dunn, Alexis Alvarez and Daniel Pasciuti, “Power and size: urbanization and empire formation in world-systems”

* Hiroko Inoue, Alexis Álvarez, Eugene N. Anderson, Andrew Owen, Rebecca Álvarez, Kirk Lawrence and Christopher Chase-Dunn“Urban scale shifts since the Bronze Age: upsweeps, collapses and semiperipheral development”