It has been argued that, over the past three decades cities have come to occupy increasingly important roles in a new geography of globalization. Indeed, several scholars have argued that the future is not one of nation-states, but rather one of city-states’ increasingly dominant concentrations of power political, economic and cultural centralized nodes linked together by increasingly rapid flows of people, information and goods and services. This course evaluates this thesis through a series of theoretical writings and case studies and films drawn from the experience of the (post) modern cities of Europe and North America in dialogue with similar writings from the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America and East and South Asia. How do we understand the distinct ways of life that urbanity makes possible? How are cityscapes produced and how do cities and architectures come to take on meanings and carry identities? How might transnational processes contour cityscapes and the identities of the peoples that populate them? How, if at all, does the place of cities in the era of globalization differ from that of cities in earlier colonial and nation-building contexts? Advanced undergraduates and graduate students welcome. Please direct any questions to Professor Hourani at houranin@msu.edu.