The Chair of Urban Studies offers courses in the framework of Contextual Studies and at BA and MA levels. Most courses include an introduction to perspectives of and from the global South. With the help of interactive seminars and on the basis of concrete case studies, students acquire a theoretically thorough understanding of urban studies. Among other topics, seminars cover migration, climate change, mining, global value chains, commodity trading, memory and transitional justice – all from a social-scientific perspective – as well as ethnographic methods.
Courses:
Migration, Mobility and Urbanisation in Southern Africa (BA)
Living the City: The Study of the Built Environment (MA)
How do We Remember? The Anthropology of Remembering and Forgetting (MA)
Public Museums in the City: Curating for the Public (BA)
Mining in Society (BA)
From Field Work to Theorising (PhD)
Rita Kesselring supervises BA, MA and PhD projects that adopt a qualitative and empirical approach to urban studies or that fall within her other areas of expertise (mining, commodity trade, memory, victimhood, Southern Africa, intercountry adoptions, or South-North interdependencies, among others).
In order to qualify for supervision, BA and MA students must have participated in at least one seminar offered by Urban Studies.
Prospective PhD candidates must come with their own funding; the Chair does not offer any funding. Proof of funding is one of the requirements for a successful enrolment in the School's DOK programme.