CritSpecDesign for Anti-Racism

2 or 3 Credits · Level: Graduate

How do the interwoven histories of slaveholding and colonialism shape the current landscape of higher education? And how might these legacies restrain our designs for the future of universities? By situating learning design as a liberatory process, this class will use the practices of critical speculation, speculative play, and design fiction to reimagine our educational institutions for an anti-racist future. Perspectives from fields like critical university studies and design justice will frame class discussions around the lingering effects of exclusionary designs in higher education. Alongside the theoretical context, this class also features the fantastical and the visionary; students will engage with speculative fiction, poetry, visual art, fugitivity, and Afro-futurism as both exemplars and essential components of a liberatory design process. By the end of this course, students will harness the power of rigorous imagination through an original, creative project so as to craft possible and future anti-racist institutions of learning.