Tri-Co Philly Stories

"Working with LITS and the Italian Department for this project was truly one of the highlights of my semester!"
— Eleanor Sullivan '27

"This program was created to connect students and faculty with the amazing experiences Philadelphia has to offer."   

This course will proceed from two basic assumptions: that the built environment, as a cultural product, is a rich archival record; and that architecture and urbanism are not born complete but made by people through discussion, debate, contingency, use, and reuse.

Philadelphia is a vibrant literary city - and one without a single, monolithic literary center of gravity. In this class, taught by novelist, poet, and Swarthmore Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, students will have a chance to get to know, and contribute to, Philadelphia's vibrant literary culture.

This course will use the lenses of sociology to critically and comparatively examine various immigrant communities that historically, economically, politically, and socially have shaped the city of Philadelphia.

This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries.

This course will explore the vibrant contemporary art world of the city of Philadelphia—a city uniquely positioned to attract artists with its many top-tier fine art schools, world-class museums, relatively affordable living and studio spaces, and thriving network of artist-run galleries and exhibition spaces.

This transdisciplinary and community-engaged course focuses on challenges of responding to extreme heat in Philadelphia. Site visits, guest speakers, readings, and community-driven research will deepen students’ understanding of the intertwined social, economic, health, and environmental challenges facing Philadelphia in a warming world.

This class investigates the unique history of housing in Philadelphia. We will cover the problems the city has faced and still faces in providing affordable housing, fair access to housing and creating diverse and vibrant neighborhoods and its great legacy of innovation in this area.

This course aims to look at the importance of access to finance to small businesses and low and moderate income households, identifies how and why this access is lacking and examines efforts to address this issues.

Drawing on the “music” side of the previously taught “Popular Music & Media” course, this course will investigate the history and contemporary conditions of music making in Philadelphia and its region.

The aim of the course would be to examine the political and economic constraints generated by poverty and racial and class segregation in contemporary urban environments and how grassroots economic initiatives rooted in mutual aid often fill the gaps and provide alternative ways to meet needs and generate supportive community.