Enrich your curriculum by participating in curricular units that will give you another perspective and skills. Enrollment for the 2nd semester Curricular Units can be done at Inforestudante. All course selections are subject ultimately to approval by the course coordinators.

Urban Aesthetics: Philosophy, Art and the City

This introductory course to the aesthetics of the city, open to undergraduate students, will develop themes and problems of the utmost topicality, addressing the key concepts of urban aesthetics as well as some traditional and contemporary issues raised by urban experience and artistic practices in and of the city. Along with this thematic and conceptual approach, the course will provide insights on some historical and influential texts on the experience of the city by Simmel, Benjamin, Lefebvre or Michel de Certeau, to name a few. The relation between philosophy, the arts and the city reached new and meaningful forms in the last century and a half, coinciding with the development of the modern metropolis. This stems from the fact that cities are a stimulating aesthetic subject, in the widest sense of the notion of aesthetics, concerning both the way we sense and perceive and the spatio-temporal structures conditioning our experiences. By focusing on philosophical aesthetics, the course will diverge from an urban planning or design perspective, while paying a particular attention to the place and function of aesthetic reflection in the face of the many social, political and ethical challenges posed by contemporary cities. The course, taught by researchers Nuno Fonseca and Nélio Conceição, will be in English. More information about the UC here.