This course will be part of UM’s theme semester. It focuses on the city of Detroit as a contested urban locale—contested visually, spatially, and historically. Indeed by probing current representations and understanding of this city as well as delving into its fascinating history, this course will give students the opportunity to think of the problems and possibilities of urban development in this and all major cities in new ways. They will, for example, have to consider what issues drove conflict and compromise in this large metropolis and how politics and power shaped outcomes there. They will think about the way in which Detroit is represented to the rest of the nation and the world, and they will consider how Detroit might be re-envisioned and rebuilt as we proceed through the 21st century. Ultimately students in this course will contribute vital background material for the Theme semester’s culminating spring symposium on the 1967 Rebellion and its reverberations in Detroit and on this campus.