The Seminar complements the lecture “Transformations I: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cities and Urban Processes” by providing opportunities for the reading of key texts and for group discussions. We will reflect on different approaches to the understanding of cities and urbanization by reading and jointly discussing key texts. The seminar also serves to teach and train basic skills in critical reading and writing for academic purposes. Students will gain an understanding of “academic knowledge claims” and improve their ability to dissect and discuss differences between arguments. Moreover, in this course students will undergo a peer-review process to improve their writing skills and get in touch with common procedures in academic publishing. Requirements are regular attendance and active engagement in class as well as the submission of one review paper. The course is taught in English.