Our Mission

Our mission is to develop and implement a continuing intellectual presence for studies in the “urban imagination” at Amherst College.

For our purposes, the “urban imagination” is the nexus of such complex phenomena as the built environment, the human body and mind in that space, and the images, plans, analyses, and socioeconomic processes that have helped to configure the world city.

We seek answers to difficult questions about urban living. Are cities “natural”? Do they speak to some profoundly atavistic need of humans to live closely together, to imitate a celestial city, or are they but built environments of convenience? What are the processes that bring them into being and permit them to take a range of forms? Are they the largest human artifact, or the unplanned product of decisions that have had unexpected consequences? Do cities threaten civilization while creating it? What is the relationship between the “imagined” city and the geopolitical site of the same name? How do the will to power and architectural space coincide? Is the city a palimpsest of failures; is its eventual disintegration embedded in its very structures and purposes? What are the aural, visual, and tactile rhythms that give “life” to the “lifeless” urban environment? How does scientific inquiry, e.g., the study of micro-organisms, of “chaos” theory, of thermodynamics, help us understand the “growth” of an urban space? How do first-world cities differ from their second- and third-world counterparts in the present environment of fragmented nationalisms, and the global circulation of people, ideas, and commodities?

We intend to explain and illustrate how “the urban imagination” calls forth this myriad of intellectual and artistic energies. In the end, we hope to embed the study of the urban phenomenon in the Amherst curriculum.

The Program

Through a combination of courses, lectures and seminars, we plan to consider the contact, if not collision, of political and capitalist imperatives with individual and imagined ones. We will investigate the effect that changes in our urban environments made by governments and corporations have on urban inhabitants and workers.

We have begun with a series of lectures and conversations around the question: where does the intellectual engagement with the city fit in a liberal arts curriculum? How do we maintain a continuing intellectual and curricular commitment to the study of the city at a small college? Do we need a major or just a predictable set of courses on the urban phenomenon at Amherst? How do we incorporate the intellectual energies of the Five-College Consortium into this endeavor? How would a concentration in the “urban imagination” be constructed? What new resources would we need, and what resources can we already call on? How would our program differ from other, more traditional “urban studies” curricula?

This site is an important step in helping us to identify other questions and in evincing interested commentary. We welcome your suggestions; more urgently, we encourage your participation.

This endeavor was made possible through grants from the President's Initiative Fund of Amherst College.