Course overview:

In the beginning, the course will deal with the historical sociology of mobilities. We will track the influence of space (spacial turn in sociology) – places and non-places. Specific attention will be devoted the role of: pedestrian culture (walk, observ, reflect), automobility in general, social and spatial liminality, traffic as a social order, cars and pedestrians. The prefering interdisciplinarity in this study – sociology, history, psychology, aestetics and so.

Substantive topic may include:

1/ Introduction. Every day life, practices, habitus (Bourdieu), lifeworld, realms and experience.

2/ Mobilizing social life. Situated mobility. The term road and path. Nomadic and roading metaphor (nomad, pilgrim, tourist…). Flâneur: a modern urban figure.

3/ The spatial turn in social sciences. Social concept of space for social relations and interactions.

4/ A sociology of traffic: driving, cycling, walking. Strategies and tactics.

5/ Walking in the city by Michel de Certeau. Read your preliminary text on the web. Pedestrians in the city, in moutains, in desert and so. Experience of crossing in the city (favourite ways…).

6/ Cycling and drivig in the city.

7/ Victor Turner: liminality and hybridity as a heuristic cultural models.

8/ Prestige adress with view on Central Park in Manhattan. Pensylvania Station as an important crossroad of New York transport. The metro as a labyrinth.

9/ Marc Augé and ethnoanalysis of present life. Spatial turn: places and non-places; metro.

10/ Marshall McLuhan and the term extension.

11/ Aestetic experience (the doctrine beaty) of a automobility. Aerodynamic proportion of body car. See for example: Le Corbusiere.

12/ Conclusions.

Literature:

Marc Augé: Non-places. Introduction to an Anthropogy of Supermodernity. London – New York 2002.

Michel de Certeau: The Practice of Everyday Life. New York 1988.

Le Corbusier: Towards a New Architecture. New York 1986.

Marshall McLuhan: Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. London 2003.

Victor Turner: From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness of Play. New York 1982.

John Urry: Mobilities. Cambridge – Malden 2007.