URBAN CULTURE - ISSUES AND DEBATES: OVERVIEW

For this chapter, in which we will draw general conclusions in Georgian urban life in a synthetic manner, you will need to refer to numerous pages of the website, with which you should by now be familiar. 

It will focus on the interaction of 'material' and 'immaterial culture' in Georgian urban life, topics of discussion in recent decades: material culture being the physical environment - buildings, objects - and immaterial culture being the social practices, traditions, world-views. You may also hear the phrases 'tangible heritage' (the architectural environment and objects from the past) and 'intangible heritage' - the latter being a more recent concept referring to the legacy of inherited practices and traditions, crafts and skills. 

For the first exercises, you will have to look at the correlation between material places - areas in cities, public buildings - and the social structure or groupings of people by social rank or profession. Fo the next ones, you will look at the material agents of social change -  how discoveries and new objects (ranging from industrial resources to precision mechanisms) contributed to overall changes in the economy and in society; the final forum will ask you to discuss how such an evolution even influenced daily life and visual culture, with new views of townscape and perceptions of passing time.

The exercises will also belong to the several types of activities that we have experimented, so that you practice different approaches to the topic:

• of the first three, dealing with the social structure and social life;
  * two will be presented as 'assignments',
  - one requiring a text answer, summarising the chapters of the Georgian Cities website on the society of the different cities
  - the other requiring a mapping and diagram practice, projecting your findings of the previous question on to a map
  * the third one will consist in classifying places of sociability in a database
• of the final three, dealing with changes brought about by technological inventions;
  * one is a 'choice' in which you have to take part in historical debates on the factors of evolution in industry and society (inventions, changes in working conditions) 
  * one is a quiz on the interrelation of technological changes, in particular the role of time-measuring devices (clocks)
  * the last one is a forum in which you will discuss how the urban environment changed and how this was perceived.