Afrofuturism and Othered Ways of Seeing & Being in the World

This course examines the issues of the destruction and reconstruction of buildings and cities. In doing so, we raise questions about the nature of architecture and cityscapes, cultural loss and cultural recovery, and how buildings and cities have come to represent other issues such as national identity and progress. We will examine the following case studies: the Library of Alexandria in ancient times; the burning and rebuilding of the U.S. Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812; the burning and rebuilding of the British Houses of Parliament in the 1830s and 1840s; the looting and destruction of the Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860; the destruction and multiple reconstructions of the Mosques of Djenné in Mali during the 19th and 20th centuries; the bombing of Dresden during World War II and its subsequent rebuilding; and the destruction of, and rebuilding plans for, the World Trade Center in New York in the 21st century.