Design and Difference

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course explores contemporary debates around race, gender, sexuality, disability rights and other forms of embodied politics and considers their potential to transform the normative assumptions and practices of the built environment disciplines. Concepts such as self-abstraction, assimilation, and discourses of the "universal" or neutral body will be examined critically in relation to socially situated theories of power, identity, and activism. The course will investigate case studies of everyday objects, buildings and urban space that exemplify the creative limits and possibilities of embodied difference in the design process. Weekly reading responses, class discussions, presentations, and a final project are required.