Philadelphia Elfreth's Alley

Courses

Explore Tri-Co Philly course offerings. 

Students enroll in two Philadelphia-focused courses from different disciplines taught by Tri-Co faculty in Philadelphia.

Featured Courses Previous Courses

Featured Courses


 Philadelphia skyline from helipad-3181

Tri-Co Philly: A City of Homes: Housing Issues in Philadelphia

Spring 2025
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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.
philly

Tri-Co Philly: Access to Finance: Why Low-Income Households and Small Businesses in the US lack the financial products they need - a Philly Perspective

Spring 2025
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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.
Philadelphia LOVE Sign

Tri-Co Philly: Philadelphia Music City

Spring 2025
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Drawing on the 鈥渕usic鈥 side of the previously taught 鈥淧opular Music & Media鈥 course, this course will investigate the history and contemporary conditions of music making in Philadelphia and its region.
Philadelphia Tri-Co Philly Reading Terminal

Tri-Co Philly: Food Cultures in Philadelphia

Fall 2024
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This course will explore the deep history of dining in Philadelphia, from Lenape foodways to the skills of Hercules Posey 鈥 George Washington鈥檚 enslaved chef 鈥 to the recent participation of Philadelphia cooks and restaurateurs in social justice movements.
Philadelphia Bridge

Tri-Co Philly: Grassroots Economies: Creating Livelihoods in an Age of Urban Inequality

Fall 2024
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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.
Philadelphia City Hall

Tri-Co Philly: Philadelphia and the 2024 Election

Fall 2024
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This course will cover, as the title suggests, the role of people and political organizations in Philadelphia in the 2024 Election as it is happening. We will work together to understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.

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Spring 2024

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Philadelphia Moon

Tri-Co Philly: University City: Race, Power and Politics in Philadelphia

Spring 2024

This class aims to trace the history of higher education and its ongoing impact on the geography, economy, and culture of greater Philadelphia and U.S. urban space broadly.

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Philadelphia City Hall William Penn

Tri-Co Philly: Literature in and of Philadelphia, 1682-1865

Spring 2024

In this course, and in the city itself, we will examine literature written in and about Philadelphia before the Civil War, exploring how and why Philadelphians engaged questions of love, freedom and non-freedom.

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 Philadelphia skyline from helipad-3181

Tri-Co Philly: History & Politics of Punishment: The School to Prison Pipeline

Spring 2024

This inter-disciplinary upper-level seminar will explore the complex school policies, teacher instructional decisions, as well as historical, political, social, economic, cultural, and structural forces that have given rise to documented reality of the 鈥渟chool-to-prison pipeline.鈥

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Fall 2023

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Philadelphia Buildings

Tri-Co Philly: Public Art, Historical Preservation and the Ethics of Commemoration

Fall 2023

What is public art? What is public space? What is the role of public art in a democracy? Does the fact that something is historically significant give us a reason to preserve it? Which historically significant things should we preserve and why? What is the moral value of commemorative art?聽 How should we assess controversies surrounding the removal of art honoring persons or groups we now judge to be morally objectionable? How best should we memorialize victims of injustice?

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Philadelphia Broad Street BW

Tri-Co Philly: Epidemic City: Philadelphia from Yellow Fever to COVID-19

Fall 2023

This course will examine the history of epidemic disease in American cities, with a focus on Philadelphia.

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Philadelphia Pine Street Trees

Tri-Co Philly: Environmental Justice: Ethnography, Politics, Action/Philadelphia

Fall 2023

An introduction to the history and theory of environmental justice, an interdisciplinary field that examines how inequalities based on race, class, ethnicity, and gender shape how different groups of people are impacted by environmental problems and how they advocate for social and environmental change.

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Spring 2023

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Philadelphia Skyline at Night

Tri-Co Philly: Popular Music and Media

Spring 2023

This team-taught interdisciplinary course investigates the histories, structures and cultural connections between popular music and other media in the city of Philadelphia.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art

Tri-Co Philly: Contemporary Art and Film in Philadelphia

Spring 2023

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

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Philadelphia LOVE Sign

Tri-Co Philly: City of Brotherly Love: Images of a Changing City

Spring 2023

The course will engage with the history of Philadelphia as an immigrant city and look at the ways in which the different neighborhoods have changed over time.

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Fall 2022

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Philadelphia Sidewalk

Tri-Co Philly: A Sociological Journey to Immigrant Communities in Philadelphia

Fall 2022

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.

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Spring 2022

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 Philadelphia skyline from helipad-3181

Tri-Co Philly: Power and Politics in Philadelphia

Spring 2022

We will explore who wins and who loses in the political arena through a series of case studies of key policy issues that are highly salient to the people of Philadelphia, including criminal justice reform, immigrants鈥 rights, gentrification and affordable housing, urban development, and workforce diversity.

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Philadelphia Fountain

Tri-Co Philly: History of Philadelphia Architecture and Urbanism

Spring 2022

This course explores Philadelphia鈥檚 architectural and urban evolution over five centuries.

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Fall 2021

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Philadelphia Sunset Silhouette

Tri-Co Philly: Narrativity and Hip Hop

Fall 2021

This course explores narrative and poetic forms and themes in hip-hop culture in Philadelphia and beyond.

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Philadelphia LOVE Park Sign

Tri-Co Philly: Urban Spaces, Historical Places: Society, Health and Social Justice in Philadelphia

Fall 2021

This course will take a broad view of the nation鈥檚 first capital, in anthropological, geographic, and historical perspective.

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Fall 2020

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Philadelphia City

Tri-Co Philly: Race and Place: A Philadelphia Story

Fall 2020

Using Philadelphia neighborhoods as our site of study, this course will analyze the relationship between race/ethnicity and spatial inequality, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of urban dwellers.

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Philadelphia Mural

Tri-Co Philly: The Nature of Public Art and the Ethics of Commemoration

Fall 2020

In this course, we will take up a number of philosophical questions about the nature of public art, political aesthetics, and the ethics of commemoration using case studies drawn from Philadelphia.

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Philadelphia Street

Tri-Co Philly: Grassroots Economies: Creating Livelihoods in an Age of Urban Inequality

Spring 2020

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.

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Spring 2020

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Philadelphia at Night

Tri-Co Philly: Philadelphia鈥檚 Opioid Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Interventions Community Engagement and Social Responsibility

Spring 2020

This course will draw on direct student engagement and the experience of community partners鈥攊ncluding medical practitioners, harm reduction activists, politicians, journalists, people who use drugs, and affected communities鈥攖o interrogate the causes and consequences of drug overdose.

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Philadelphia Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Tri-Co Philly: The Philadelphia Mosaic: Immigrant Communities in the City

Spring 2020

This course explores the experiences and city-making strategies of immigrant communities in the Greater Philadelphia Area from roughly the late 19th century to the present day.

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Fall 2019

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Philadelphia Highway

Tri-Co Philly: Environmental Justice: Theory and Action

Fall 2019

An introduction to the history and theory of environmental justice, an interdisciplinary field that examines how inequalities based on race, class, ethnicity, and gender shape how different groups of people are impacted by environmental problems and how they advocate for social and environmental change.

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Philadelphia Parkway

Tri-Co Philly: Place, People and Collaborative Research in Philadelphia

Fall 2019

This transdisciplinary course, which will be taught in Philadelphia, focuses on anthropology鈥檚 contributions (and potential contributions) to engaging critical environmental issues in urban settings.

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Philadelphia Delaware River

Tri-Co Philly: Fight for #PhlEd: Urban Educational and Environmental Justice

Fall 2019

Fight for #PhlEd is an examination of urbanism and environmental justice as seen through of urban education politics in Philadelphia and other US cities.

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Spring 2019

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Philadelphia Traffic

Tri-Co Philly: Narrativity and Hip Hop

Spring 2019

This course explores narrative and poetic forms and themes in hip-hop culture.

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Philadelphia University City

Tri-Co Philly: The Politics of the Creative Class in American Cities聽

Spring 2019

Explore the social, economic, and political impacts associated with the sizeable influx of college graduates into many urban areas during the past decade.

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Philadelphia Elfreth's Alley

Tri-Co Philly: Philadelphia: Inventing a City

Spring 2019

From its patricians to its philistines,聽the course explores Philadelphia through聽a roster of writers, journalists, civic scribes,聽Quaker legerdemain,聽and pamphleteers who charted a number of cultural transformations.聽

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Philadelphia Skyline

Contact Us

Tri-Co Philly

Calista Cleary
Tri-Co Philly Program Director
610-795-1576
ccleary@brynmawr.edu