This course's aims are two-fold: 1) to offer students the theoretical and practical tools to understand how and why cities become torn by ethnic, religious, racial, nationalist, and/or other forms of identity that end up leading to conflict, violence, inequality, and social injustice; and 2) to use this knowledge and insight in the search for solutions. As preparation, students will be required to become familiar with social and political theories of the city and the nation and their relationship to each other. They also will focus on the ways that racial, ethnic, religious, nationalist or other identities grow and manifest themselves in cities or other territorial levels of determination (including the regional or transnational). In the search for remedies, students will be encouraged to consider a variety of policymaking or design points of entry, ranging from the political- institutional (e.g. forms of democratic participation and citizenship) to spatial, infrastructural, and technological interventions.

This lesson will ask the students to take a couple of online surveys that will ask them a series of questions about governmental policies and at the end the site will inform them of which party they would most closely align with. This will give the students an opportunity to reflect on their policy choices and why they ended up matching the party they did.

A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson
The Rise of American Democracy
The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
Indian Removal
The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority