This bachelor’s seminar introduces students to research and theory relating to urban modernity and infrastructure. Various forms of infrastructure constitute the grounds upon which people’s day to day lives are formed and governed. How does the presence, absence, failure, and decay of infrastructure fundamentally shape our lives and regulate our access to resources, opportunities, and power? How are ideas of modernity tied to infrastructure and how do such entanglements impact urban governance? 

In this seminar, we attempt to grapple with the politics of infrastructure, the practices of connections and disconnections therein, that produce the city as an uneven geography marked by degrees of class, caste, gendered, and racial separations. We will explore how socio-technical networks of transport, water, sanitation, waste, and information constitute a (dis)ordering of life in cities all over the world, from Karachi, Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, to Mumbai. Learning outcomes include understanding approaches to researching infrastructure and urban life and developing academic essay writing skills. Our learning materials comprise research articles, book chapters, theoretical essays, a short story, and a film.