As part of a broad civics and liberal arts education, the main goal of this course is to provide students with the opportunity to increase their knowledge of US elections, US electoral demography, and the US political system.  In addition to a focus on the campaign(s) for the US Presidency, this course will explore the cultural, demographic, social, and spatial dimensions of the current US electorate, identify and examine important swing states and congressional districts in the race for control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, detail the stakes involved for control of these two governmental bodies, analyze image-making in and the visual culture of US political campaigns and elections, and detail the mechanics and mechanisms of US elections and US electoral cycles.  The main theme addressed in this course will be the dynamic of and dialogue between a particular cultural and social moment in US history and the course and outcome of US political campaigns and elections.  Additional themes that will be developed in this course include: the on-going diversification of the nominees put forward by US political parties; splits (within and without) in the ideology and positioning of the Democratic and Republican parties; and the evolving demography and political positioning of the US electorate.  In this regard, this course will look forward to and prepare students to analyze and grapple with the run-up to and results of the next US Presidential elections.  As young adults whose lives, in many ways, will be shaped by the outcome of US elections present and future, the over-arching objective of this course will be to raise students’ civic awareness and underline the importance of US elections in articulating, defining, and reflecting the identity and future of America as a nation.

Elective

Multicultural Psychology is more than just understanding and appreciating diversity, it's about the influence that a multicultural world has on individuals and social systems that exist within it. Together we will explore the social constructs of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, and ability through readings, videos, in-class activities, and class discussion. Informed by psychological theory and research, we will examine the impact that these labels have on a person's identity development, societal positioning, and mental and physical health and well-being. By the end of the class, students will be able to explain the advantages and challenges that individuals and societies face as we become more interconnected in a diverse world.

Elective

The health of the American economy and, at times, the strength of our spirit as a people are measured by how much we spend on consumer goods. Both individually and collectively, we are defined not only by what we purchase, but by the act of shopping itself. How did we become a nation of citizen consumers? What drives consumer demand? Already in the late 19th century, middle-class values were shifting from thrift to indulgence, though we remained a producer nation for much of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the steady decline of manufacturing in the United States and the outsourcing of production in an increasingly globalized context have done little to cool our love affair with consumer goods. Using an interdisciplinary American Studies approach that explores the intersections of history, politics, material culture, gender and sexuality, class, race, religion, immigration and ethnicity, and the built environment, this course examines the nature and expansion of mass consumption, the democratization of desire, the meanings attached to consumer goods and the act of spending, the role of technology and advertising, and the impact of mass consumption upon the built environment. We will investigate consumption patterns over time among women, people of color, immigrants and their descendants, sexual minorities, and youth. Studies of consumption within ethnic communities, in particular, suggest the creation of transnational identities. As a result, we will also explore globalized consumer products and patterns. Finally, the course will look at the various kinds of controls to which American consumerism has been subjected.

Elective

Have you ever wondered how social situations guide how we think about and act toward others, what determines who we love and who we hate, how we form attitudes about our own and others behavior, what determines whether we will help or hurt others, or how we construct knowledge about the self? If so, social psychology addresses these questions and many more. Social psychology is the science of how others influence the way people think, feel, and act. The aim of this course is to familiarize you with current and classic research and theory in social psychology, help you to develop critical thinking skills about social-psychological phenomena, and stimulate you to think about the implications of social-psychological research for everyday living. For this course, students will complete readings from a textbook and articles. There be will be four quizzes and a final project applying one concept within social psychology to everyday life.

Elective

Millions of people around the world have been forced from their homes by interlinked factors including persecution, armed conflict and war, natural disasters, structural violence, and development projects. The seminar explores the “refugee” and “migrant” status and examines the refugee crisis and forced migration in a global perspective and through an interdisciplinary lens. It provides a historical background of the formation of the “refugee” concept going back to inter-war Europe and placing emphasis both on its construction in international law and on the precarious state that refugees and migrants face today globally through various case studies. The seminar also addresses the politics of humanitarianism, the role of international organizations, especially UNHCR, and the securitization of human rights as well as the ethnic, gendered, and religious identities being reshaped by forced displacement. 

The course is organized both chronologically and thematically, to understand the ways in which global migration and contemporary refugee crises have changed over time, highlighting continuities and ruptures especially in the construction of the refugee and the migrant as the “other.” Lectures and readings provide a global perspective but focus on regional case studies, often using a comparative and transdisciplinary framework. Similarly, writing assignments, lectures, and class materials will draw upon international relations, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, and history, and examine different types of sources, including academic books and journal articles, first-person narratives, and visual resources.

Elective

Millions of people around the world have been forced from their homes by interlinked factors including persecution, armed conflict and war, natural disasters, structural violence, and development projects. The seminar explores the “refugee” and “migrant” status and examines the refugee crisis and forced migration in a global perspective and through an interdisciplinary lens. It provides a historical background of the formation of the “refugee” concept going back to inter-war Europe and placing emphasis both on its construction in international law and on the precarious state that refugees and migrants face today globally through various case studies. The seminar also addresses the politics of humanitarianism, the role of international organizations, especially UNHCR, and the securitization of human rights as well as the ethnic, gendered, and religious identities being reshaped by forced displacement. 

The course is organized both chronologically and thematically, to understand the ways in which global migration and contemporary refugee crises have changed over time, highlighting continuities and ruptures especially in the construction of the refugee and the migrant as the “other.” Lectures and readings provide a global perspective but focus on regional case studies, often using a comparative and transdisciplinary framework. Similarly, writing assignments, lectures, and class materials will draw upon international relations, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, and history, and examine different types of sources, including academic books and journal articles, first-person narratives, and visual resources.

Elective

Through lectures and close readings of secondary and primary sources, this course investigates political power and its relationship to freedom in the creation and development of the United States. In the first third of the class, topics of particular interest are: Indigenous cultures in America; early Spanish, French, and British colonialism; the settlement of British North America; unfree systems of labor; and comparative folkways among different regions. The second examines the American Revolution and the Constitutional debate, territorial expansion, and the spread of democracy, markets, and reform movements. The last features slavery and the sectional crisis, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines.

Elective

The course will examine ways that many media, especially film, respond to the great social forces of their time and their culture. Some films, and other creative expressions, reflect an inherent endorsement or criticism of the politics contemporary to them. We will examine social critics' roles in some of the influential movements of the West in the 20th century--the Russian Revolution, German Nazism, the New Deal, World War Two, the Cold War and Third World Liberation movements. Requirements include readings and screenings from each of the eras covered, written assignments and exams, and participation in class discussions. In addition to three hours of class each week, there will be evening film screenings.

Elective

As the study of behavior and mental processes, psychology allows us to better understand how people think, feel and act. This introductory course provides a broad overview of the major content areas within the field of psychology (e.g., physiological, developmental, social and cognitive psychology) and will introduce you to the psychological theories and research used to understand human behavior. We will cover a wide variety of topics, including how people learn, process and store information, why people possess distinct personalities, how social situations and cultural norms affect our behavior, how we grow and develop throughout our lives, etc. Throughout the course we will critically evaluate the merit of classic psychological theory and research in understanding people's thoughts, feelings and actions in real world situations. This course will provide a broad knowledge base for those interested in taking upper level psychology classes.

Elective

In this course, we will investigate two central questions: how are sounds shaped by place and power, and how are place and power ​​negotiated/reconstituted in and through sound? Building on the works of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, this course will explore "soundscapes" as fecund sites of social and political inquiry. Through readings, recordings, and soundwalks, we will question how the soundscape functions both as a sonic place and as a way of making sense of that place. The course will include lectures, discussions, and short writing assignments. For the final project, students will analyze a soundscape of their choosing, paying specific attention to its structural components (keynote sounds, signals, soundmarks, etc.) as well as its social, political, and economic resonances.

Elective

Inventive Political Ecologies is a HPSS elective and NCSS core seminar. The course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Inventive Political Ecologies. This course will critically interrogate the many different proposals for inventive political ecologies that have emerged out of the critical social sciences, technology and engineering studies and the broad fields of design, planning and architecture. We will collectively discuss and debate what these inventive political ecologies might offer for addressing and acting on the environmental and climate crisis. We will consider ways in which discussion of “invention” and “innovation” can both open up and sometimes narrow eco-political and environmental discussions. Finally, we will continually consider which inventive political ecologies might help us move towards designing and building more just post-carbon futures.

Graduate students register for GRAD 702G - INVENTIVE POLITICAL ECOLOGIES.

Elective

Inventive Political Ecologies is a HPSS elective and NCSS core seminar. The course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Inventive Political Ecologies. This course will critically interrogate the many different proposals for inventive political ecologies that have emerged out of the critical social sciences, technology and engineering studies and the broad fields of design, planning and architecture. We will collectively discuss and debate what these inventive political ecologies might offer for addressing and acting on the environmental and climate crisis. We will consider ways in which discussion of “invention” and “innovation” can both open up and sometimes narrow eco-political and environmental discussions. Finally, we will continually consider which inventive political ecologies might help us move towards designing and building more just post-carbon futures.

Graduate students register for GRAD 702G - INVENTIVE POLITICAL ECOLOGIES.

Elective

We are in the midst of an ecological and climate crisis. Could cities and our urban worlds become key spaces for solutions? The aim of this course is to sociologically examine the past, present and future relations between ‘cities’, urbanization and nature; to introduce students to urban political ecology as a sociological methodology for exploring urban environments and to encourage empirical, normative and imaginative reflection on the possibilities (and potential dangers) that lie behind discourses of ‘green urbanism’. Surveying an exciting range of cities across time and space and capture, we will explore the many dynamic relationships that cities have with their surrounding ecologies and non-human natures. We will examine how a diverse range of reconstructive discourses of urban sustainability, from techno-centric plans to re-engineer cities, to discussions of ‘urban environmental justice’, to utopian plans to facilitate new urban social ecologies are vying to shape the future of cities. Finally, we will consider what role art, design, architecture and planning, politics and policy might play in shaping the future of our eco-urban worlds.

A version of this course was taught previously as an S101: Topics in History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences.  If you took this topic as your S101, please do not enroll in this course.

Elective

We are in the midst of an ecological and climate crisis. Could cities and our urban worlds become key spaces for solutions? The aim of this course is to sociologically examine the past, present and future relations between ‘cities’, urbanization and nature; to introduce students to urban political ecology as a sociological methodology for exploring urban environments and to encourage empirical, normative and imaginative reflection on the possibilities (and potential dangers) that lie behind discourses of ‘green urbanism’. Surveying an exciting range of cities across time and space and capture, we will explore the many dynamic relationships that cities have with their surrounding ecologies and non-human natures. We will examine how a diverse range of reconstructive discourses of urban sustainability, from techno-centric plans to re-engineer cities, to discussions of ‘urban environmental justice’, to utopian plans to facilitate new urban social ecologies are vying to shape the future of cities. Finally, we will consider what role art, design, architecture and planning, politics and policy might play in shaping the future of our eco-urban worlds.

A version of this course was taught previously as an S101: Topics in History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences.  If you took this topic as your S101, please do not enroll in this course.

Elective

Designers and architects are constantly making objects, systems, services, infrastructures but they are also involved in dream making, desire shaping and negotiating power relations. The aim of this class is to introduce students in an accessible way to the wide-ranging insights that a sociology of design and architecture offers for understanding and evaluating the contours of our current designed economies and possible future designed worlds. We will explore design and architecture as forms of classed, raced and gendered labor and look at the tensions that have long existed between professional designers and publics. We will consider the ways in which the mainstream design industry is shaped by and a shaper of politics and culture and consider how it is embedded within and maintains markets, fossil capitalism, consumer culture and colonialism. We will appraise what sociologists and design theorists have to say about possible future design economies and societies based on digital surveillance, automation/robotics, and bio/geo-engineering. Finally, we will critically examine at a range of critical design social movements: from design justice to decolonial designers, feminist designers to designs for decarbonization and sustainable transitions which argue more just and ecological design worlds are still possible. 

Elective

Designers and architects are constantly making objects, systems, services, infrastructures but they are also involved in dream making, desire shaping and negotiating power relations. The aim of this class is to introduce students in an accessible way to the wide-ranging insights that a sociology of design and architecture offers for understanding and evaluating the contours of our current designed economies and possible future designed worlds. We will explore design and architecture as forms of classed, raced and gendered labor and look at the tensions that have long existed between professional designers and publics. We will consider the ways in which the mainstream design industry is shaped by and a shaper of politics and culture and consider how it is embedded within and maintains markets, fossil capitalism, consumer culture and colonialism. We will appraise what sociologists and design theorists have to say about possible future design economies and societies based on digital surveillance, automation/robotics, and bio/geo-engineering. Finally, we will critically examine at a range of critical design social movements: from design justice to decolonial designers, feminist designers to designs for decarbonization and sustainable transitions which argue more just and ecological design worlds are still possible. 

Elective

The ability to conceive and prepare for different future(s) is a vital human capability. Designers are frequently commissioned by multinational corporations, government agencies and cultural institutions for foresight and strategy work. But in times of uncertainty we all have to be futurists. This special topic studio will introduce students to the tools and techniques of foresight practice and discursive design. We will also examine afro-futurism, decolonised futures and participatory design to see how these practices are being used by communities and cultures rarely supported in futures practices. Students will finish the semester with designed objects and written products that support more resilient futures thinking.

If you have questions about the studio, please do not hesitate to contact Charlie Cannon via email. cccannon@risd.edu.

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Thousands of years ago, in the highlands of Peru, indigenous farmers developed an amazing plant that provided high protein yet needed very little energy to cook – it was the nuña, a bean that pops like popcorn! Now, thousands of years later, those same qualities could provide global environmental and health benefits, both reducing our fossil fuel use and our consumption of animal protein. But how can we encourage people to eat these amazing little beans?

In this studio, we will explore that very question, using human-centered design research and iterative experimentation to respectfully build on this ancient indigenous technology. Part foodways research, part food design, we will examine the challenge from top to bottom using seeds developed by the USDA to grow in non-equatorial climates. We will do everything from experimenting with how to prepare the beans to designing research-based deployment strategies and packaging, using design to help lower the barriers to environmentally-sound healthy nutrition.

If you love hands-on experimentation, are interested in design for social good and want to learn more about qualitative design research, this is the course for you!

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Mainstream games, such as Monopoly and Settlers of Catan, normalize extractive behavior, othering stereotypes, and bitter competition between players. Meanwhile, tools used in “community engagement” and “participatory design” in architecture, design, and planning fields create illusions of choice and public approval by gamifying public processes. This studio asks, how can games encourage alternative relationships and interactions between players, and be a medium through which folks of all ages can practice care, collaboration, and learning at the grassroots level?

After examining our positionalities and analyzing existing board games, students will work in teams to develop their own semi-cooperative board games. The game development process will be introduced in stages as students critically discuss how design can both help and/or harm people alongside reflections about relevant personal, social, and political perspectives. The work will include concept sketches, worldbuilding stories, rulebooks, zines, physical crafted prototypes and components, and student-organized playtesting sessions. The primary challenges for students in this studio lie in discovering how to align design decisions with core values and goals, how to source materials ethically, and how their game can be played and produced in community - all while ensuring the game is replayable and fun!

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Have we considered what it truly means to critique? This course explores the role of critique, dissects real-life cases, and challenges existing methodologies to foster more just and equitable ways to look at design.

Well closely examine how professionals, clients, and stakeholders present and evaluate design work to critically reflect on methods within ID and further consider how ethical and inclusive practices take place in the field of industrial design. Students will actively engage in research workshops, role-playing, and discussions to reshape their understanding of design and critique.

By the conclusion of the studio, students will have designed tools and models for public and private critique. Through this, students will be equipped with enriched perspectives and a comprehensive toolkit of critique and discussion methodologies that are continuously applicable in future practices.

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design