The history of modern mega-cities is a dynamic and challenging field of research and writing. And mega cities have embodied modern life and experiences. Between the mid nineteenth century and the late twentieth century they were sites of modern technologies, modern forms of work, commerce and consumption, leisure and gender relations. London, the world's biggest city and capital of the biggest modern empire, manifests a special kind of modernity. The seminar covers its transformation from an imperial to a global city and examines the ways in which men and women, of different classes and localities in London, experienced and shaped the city and were shaped by it. The seminar shall consider major topics in the city's modernization: political and urban movements, London's environmental crises and their solution, crime and punishment, sexualities and sexual identities in the mega-city, consumption, imperial connections, London during the 20^th century total wars, immigration and the culture revolution of the late 1960s.

The seminar shall provide tools for examining London's history and for making use of the “spatial turn” in history and the humanities, as well as methodologies for researching and writing the history of cities.