Annotation
The course on housing estates in Prague, the paneláky, offers students an introduction into the history of the state-socialist era high-rises that serve as housing for almost 40 percent of the Czech capital’s population today. Scholars have studied paneláky in an interdisciplinary manner since the fall of communism in Central-East Europe in late 1989: scholars from the humanities and social sciences have inquired into the particulars of the design and construction of Prague’s housing estates during the Cold War, their ideological and socio-cultural impacts, and the entwined urban and political negotiations of their tenants and the state.
This class will introduce the students to historical events and theoretical concepts surrounding the state-socialist housing estates. They will become familiarized with authors from architectural and urban history, sociology, urban geography, and anthropology. The class will focus on the current state and problematic of paneláky and the details of their architectural, urban, and societal significance during the existence of the Czechoslovak state.
This class is aimed at interested undergraduate students from all departments in social sciences and humanities regardless of their academic year. The class will be taught only in English.