About the Project
"Making Modern Nashville" was developed over a period of two years collecting and showcasing student research and analyses based on primary and secondary source data.
The course was primarily composed of juniors and seniors in Belmont University's Honors Program from 2015 to 2016 and taught by Dr. Mary Ellen Pethel. The course examines the evolution of the modern city in American culture and history and the symbiotic relationship between the city and its inhabitants. Students seek to understand cities and city life as well as urban development and planning.
An interdisciplinary program of study, the course encompasses the political institutions, economic and social relations, physical landscapes, and cultural frameworks that constitute the city. Using the conceptual tools supplied by architecture, sociology, anthropology, urban planning, environmental studies, and history, we focus on cities as distinctive entities and explore the meaning and function of cities within broader society through lenses of gender, race, ethnicity, leisure, labor, and class. We also explore the changing relationships among areas shaped by urbanization, such as downtown and suburb.
The course focuses on the interactions of economic, political, and socio-cultural factors as they relate to the making of the modern city. In other words, students analyze the ways in which markets, government, social movements, conflict, the arts, religion, educational institutions, and ordinary women and men have shaped American cities. The course is national in scope, but we give special attention to the development of Nashville after the midterm. Selected final projects and field assignments are featured as part of three collections and one exhibit hosted on this site, which serves as a course portfolio and ongoing digital humanities project. Dr. Pethel's homepage is: http://drpethel.com.