The Big City: Space, Identity, Text

The course deals with some major issues in urban thought. We will examine the big city as a phsical-architectural space as well as a human space. We wikk discuss the crucial issue of the representation of the big city in a literary text, the possibilities and limitations of representation, and fundemental approaches to the mapping of the urban theme. A basic underlying assumption of this course is that the description and representation of the big city is a tradition in Hebrew narrative fiction. this tradition developed between the second half of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, going through some phases which reflect gradual changes in space design, in ideological approaches to the city's presence and in the status of the individual, his or her point of view and position in the dialogue with the urban environment.