Find out more about the Undergraduate Certificate here.
Aniston Breslin
History of Art
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
Pictorial Representation in the Roman World, Classic C175
A Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism, Architecture 170
Since my focus in History of Art was Architecture, I was intrigued by the Global Urban Humanities Initiative and wanted to learn more about urban life through the program's interdisciplinary approach. I participated in the undergraduate certificate program in order to expand my knowledge of urban humanities by working closely with a team of students from a variety of majors. I was very interested in taking Siteworks: Understanding Place through Performance and Design for the opportunity to work with the professors, who came from theater, architecture, and city planning, and to explore the concepts including public space and the commons.
Amy Loo
Political Science
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
Reading Chinese Cities, Chinese 158
The Social and Cultural Processes in Architecture & Urban Design, Architecture 110
While studying immigration policy, I realized how the methods and perspectives of political science could not answer essential questions about the everyday life experiences of immigrants. I became interested in how people, specifically displaced populations, perceive the space and environment around them. What makes them feel lost in an urban environment? What makes them gain a sense of belonging and feel at home? The GUH program allowed me to explore these questions with interdisciplinary methods and perspectives.
Tiffany Meng
Urban Studies
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
Urban Sociology, Sociology 136
Advanced Topics in Urban Studies, City Planning 190
In my first three years of work as an Urban Studies major, I felt my understanding of cities was somehow incomplete. My recent participation in the GUH Certificate Program truly enlarged my understanding as it combines academic approaches with real-world experience--placemaking through collaborative site-specific work to bring spirituality into the public realm. Public spaces are the ideal sites of artistic intervention; they are the window into a city's soul. I hope more students will join and share the excitement of discovery with our community. Through active engagement it's possible to add magic to mundane everyday places. You can create a sense of realism that is hard to achieve with conventional wisdom.
Hannah Ricker
Development Studies
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
Postcolonial Geographies, Development Studies 150
Special Topics in Design Theory and Criticism, Architecture 139
I graduated in 2018 with a degree in Development Studies, focusing on geography and Southeast Asia. My studies have focused on the way in which macro politico-economic structures shape and are shaped by urban processes, and how an acute attention to urban studies is critical to a multi-scalar lens of development. I will spend this upcoming year in Berlin, where I will research the ways in which Cold War identities were a product and tool of aesthetic imperialism, and how artistic responses organized around the restrictions of East and West.
Briana Salmon
Architecture
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
Performance and History - "The Presence of the Actor" - A History of the American Theatrical Avant-Garde, Theater 125
The Social and Cultural Processes of Architecture and Urban Design, Architecture 110
Daniel Sanchez
Architecture
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Siteworks - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core studio)
The Southern Border, Education 186 AC/Geography 159AC/Ethnic Studies 159AC
Introduction to Architectural Deisgn Theory and Criticism, Architecture 130
Sam Siegel
Interdisciplinary Studies
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Special Topics in Architectural Design, Architecture 109
The History of City Planning, City and Regional Planning 200
Berlin and the Twentieth Century, History 167
My interest in cities goes back to 2004 when my older brother and I discovered SimCity 4. That led to my first trip to San Francisco, and to finding a certain public university directly across the bay. I enrolled in the City as Nexus Global Urban Humanities colloquium and realized that I had been moving in a single direction all along: Global Urban Humanities! Now that I have graduated, I don’t know where my path lead in the future, but something tells me I will find many more fascinating cities along the way.
Grace Treffinger
Conservation and Resource Studies
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Sitework - Understanding Place through Design and Performance (core)
Geographic Information Systems, Landscape Architecture C188
Sociology and Political Ecology of Agro-Food Systems, ESPM 155
Find out more about the Undergraduate Certificate here.