City in social theory

As the second presentation in the series concering the relation between urban areas and Kurdish culture, the presentation will be devoted to various theories of social aspect of cities. Starting from 19th century theories of Fustel de Coulanges and Max Weber, described will be main themes and approaches on theorizing City. The chichago school of ssocial sciences will be described as academic tradition most influential for studies of city in the 20th century. After explaining main ideas of Robert Ezra Parks, Louis Wirth's and Ernst Burgess' works on the topic presented will be quantitative location theories and alternative perspectives critically verifying main assumptions of Chicago scholars. The latter part of the presentation will describe contemporary critical theories of the city and its most notable representatives: Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells and David Harvey. At the end sketched will be the problem of ethnocentricity of Western theories of city and the problem of orientalist construction of "Islamic City". The topic will be elaborated during the following lecture.