From its humble origins in LiveJournal and the woman-rating origins of Facebook, social media has come a long way to reach its current iterations. This course will look at the emergence and development of social media platforms, asking how we construct ourselves online and how being online constructs us. Paying particular attention to race, class, gender, and sexuality, we’ll examine issues such as how attention has become a commodity, the politics of emotion and The Algorithm™, and the benefits and limits of online activism. You’ll never look at your FYP the same way again. 

Elective

Do you think before clicking “Accept Cookies” when visiting a website these days, or is it just second nature? This course will examine the politics of technological and data surveillance, how we have come to consent to it, and what happens once it’s collected. We will engage interdisciplinary critical internet and data studies to explore the politics of information and how it interacts with cultural norms and systems of racialized and gendered surveillance. We'll also look at the status of data politics in the age of AI and ask how we might create digital worlds based in social justice and liberation.

Elective

Transformative Technologies and Cultural Change is a lecture course centering on the cultural and social impacts of technologies. Choices of technologies for the class discussions will be limited to those that together have transformed how we live, work, and experience leisure.  Among included technological systems communication, transportation, energy generation, health and longevity, and mass production will be examined. The course requires reading about three to four brief articles or excerpts per meeting. These provide context and content for in-class discussions related to lectures.  Student discussion leaders guide the class and must volunteer to run at least 2 discussions during the semester.  Hence, attendance and class participation are both important elements of Transformative Technologies.  There will also be 3 brief writings derived from prompts and requiring some research beyond assigned readings. There are two tests including one at the midterm and one during the Liberal Arts Examination Day.  In addition, a presentation expanding on course topics and of your own choosing will complete the requirements for the course.

Elective

Infectious disease has been the biggest threat to human life throughout history. Through a survey of the global history of epidemics and pandemics, from smallpox in colonial America to influenza in World War One, tuberculosis in the 19th century and COVID-19 in the present day, this course addresses, from an historical perspective, humanity’s response to the appearance and spread of infectious diseases. In order to draw historical lessons to grapple with current and future epidemics and pandemics, this course will focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural consequences, dimensions, and outcomes of outbreaks of infectious diseases. Specific themes and topics addressed in this course include: the nexus among climate, migration, and disease; imperialism and disease; displacement, migration, and disease; the development and evolution of medical institutions, quarantines, and public health systems; animal-human interactions and outbreaks of infectious diseases; disease and warfare; racism and social stigma in the context of epidemics and pandemics; vaccination campaigns; and the memorialization/memory of past pandemics. The infectious diseases addressed in this course include COVID-19, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and cholera.

Elective

How does technology make you feel? What can those emotions tell us about our social reality? This course will explore the interdisciplinary study of affect and emotion as it relates to the structure and culture of the digital realm—through memes, video games, social media, and more. We will examine these issues with particular attention to how feelings operate along lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality to understand how emotion, digitally mediated, can be a site of control as well as of resistance.

Elective

A Eurocentric perspective dominates the approaches to studying international politics. However, in this course, we will explore international politics from the perspective of the Global South, That is, understanding international affairs from the experiences and perspectives of poorer and less powerful countries in the world. We will rely on theories from postcolonialists, critical race theorists, feminist scholars, queer scholars, and environmentalists to study topics such as war and conflict, migration, global environmental politics, trade, human rights, and other topics. Students should come away from the course with a beginner's understanding of international affairs that can help them competently follow and participate in current and civic affairs.

Elective

A Eurocentric perspective dominates the approaches to studying international politics. However, in this course, we will explore international politics from the perspective of the Global South, That is, understanding international affairs from the experiences and perspectives of poorer and less powerful countries in the world. We will rely on theories from postcolonialists, critical race theorists, feminist scholars, queer scholars, and environmentalists to study topics such as war and conflict, migration, global environmental politics, trade, human rights, and other topics. Students should come away from the course with a beginner's understanding of international affairs that can help them competently follow and participate in current and civic affairs.

Elective

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

This section of S301 on Bodies & Borders introduces students to transdisciplinary and intersectional discussions focused on relationships between bodies and borders. Students will engage with theories of embodiment and explore linguistic, spatial, and identity borderlands, as well as issues of global mobility, contested citizenship, and radical vulnerability. Through these perspectives, they will build strong contextual and theoretical foundations, alongside skills in research methodologies. This work will be reflected in the development of a final project, including a literature review, iterative drafts, and a final presentation that reflects their intellectual engagement throughout the seminar.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

Films have shaped popular perceptions of war in the United States arguably more than historians have. This raises questions such as: What is the relationship between the history presented in these films and the history as interpreted by academic historians? How do the positionalities of movie creators shape the product? How do they portray soldiers and civilians, allies and enemies? How might these movies serve as cultural artifacts offering insight into political discourses at the time of their production? Is Francois Truffaut correct that the appeals of battle make a true anti-war film virtually impossible? Prominent directors spotlighted include Stanley Kubrick, F. F. Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Spike Lee, and Kathryn Bigelow. Work involves brief lectures, screenings, discussions, a film journal, and a final project.

Elective

The course is designed to focus on the range of visual means that people use to convey ideas and stories, non-literary forms that make ideas accessible to a wide audience. Textiles, puppets and masquerades, when viewed within their cultural matrix, are powerful tools for capturing the less visible aspects of communities in which the written word may not be the primary mode of information sharing. Graffiti, tagging, and muralling, which move in the direction of public art, are more contemporary means of visual communication in our own communities. Likewise, sketching, electronic imagery and graphic novels are powerful tools for documentation and story-telling for contemporary artists. From a simple symbol placed on a wall or a parchment to the more complex structure of masquerades and electronic moving images, human communities have sought to tell their own - and others' stories  - and to convey opinions and messages in endless evocative and creative ways. What can we learn from these various forms of visual communication? This course is not a “making” class per se, but proposes to explore some of these means of visual communication, both historically and currently, in a variety of cultural contexts.

Elective

The course is designed to give students an overview of Mexico’s historic and contemporary art, from the cultural legacy of the pre-columbian states (the Olmecs to the Aztecs) to the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). It will explore the political, economic and cultural contexts which gave rise to the Mexican revolution and its cultural impact on the development of such movements as the estridentismo and on the muralist period; we will look at the impact of Indigenous styles on the history of Mexican art and beyond, and the continuous role of regional traditional creativity on modern art and architecture in Mexico. The course will use both an ethnographic perspective, and an aesthetics approach to explore the complex trajectory of Mexican art.

Elective

In this course, we explore the expansive sonic worlds of Latin America. We understand sound as a mode of being in and knowing worlds. To do so, we engage concepts of cosmologies, worldings, and pluriverses, all of which center the intersection of peoples and more-than-human actors. Much of this class is about Latin American music--a particularly salient and exceptionally diverse category of organized sound. But we will also explore the politics of sound(s) beyond music such as: el grito mexicano, radio voices, indigenous language ideophones, Amazonian bird song, motorcycle noise, and tourist architectures. We work to understand sound as a practice that makes social relations, mediates power dynamics, and connects us to the cosmos. Each week, students will complete outside of class readings, listenings, and viewings accompanied by short informal writings in a listening journal. Class time will be spent between discussion, activity, and occasional lecture. Students will have two main projects:

1) a critical essay unpacking a sonic phenomenon in Latin America

2) a self-designed project developed in consultation with the professor and through in-class workshops.

Elective

In this class we study cities and examine the shared lessons and power relations that frame urbanism today. We ponder upon the valences and representations of the terms Global South-Global North, and developing-developed, and the impacts they have on urban studies, through this we challenge conventional EuroAmercian centric ways of looking at urban life. The course highlights global mega cities such as Mumbai, Kunming, Sao Paolo, Bangkok, and Lagos and places them at the center of urban studies. The course will explore the resonances between these cities and the kinds of challenges they face as they encounter rapid urban growth and renewal. We will ask: What do cities of the Global South tell us about urbanism and urbanization today? What are formal and economic challenges facing urbanism today and how do global megacities exhibit them? What forms of knowledge, activism, and contestation emerge from urban areas outside of Europe and North America?

Like most courses in the History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences (HPSS) department, this course builds a critical understanding of diverse cultures of the world, raises ethical questions that arise as different groups interact, develops an analysis of social situations in the world, and highlights forms of power and inequity. Class texts will case study different cities and compare experience in cities in Latin America, Asia, Africa, United States, and the Middle East. Modules in the class will discuss planning and the built environment, commodities and capital, informality and climate change, infrastructure and energy, as well as think through theory from the Global South. This is a discussion-based seminar and active in-class participation is required of all students. Class activities will include mapping sessions, group work, and discussions on films.

Elective

In this class we study cities and examine the shared lessons and power relations that frame urbanism today. We ponder upon the valences and representations of the terms Global South-Global North, and developing-developed, and the impacts they have on urban studies, through this we challenge conventional EuroAmercian centric ways of looking at urban life. The course highlights global mega cities such as Mumbai, Kunming, Sao Paolo, Bangkok, and Lagos and places them at the center of urban studies. The course will explore the resonances between these cities and the kinds of challenges they face as they encounter rapid urban growth and renewal. We will ask: What do cities of the Global South tell us about urbanism and urbanization today? What are formal and economic challenges facing urbanism today and how do global megacities exhibit them? What forms of knowledge, activism, and contestation emerge from urban areas outside of Europe and North America?

Like most courses in the History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences (HPSS) department, this course builds a critical understanding of diverse cultures of the world, raises ethical questions that arise as different groups interact, develops an analysis of social situations in the world, and highlights forms of power and inequity. Class texts will case study different cities and compare experience in cities in Latin America, Asia, Africa, United States, and the Middle East. Modules in the class will discuss planning and the built environment, commodities and capital, informality and climate change, infrastructure and energy, as well as think through theory from the Global South. This is a discussion-based seminar and active in-class participation is required of all students. Class activities will include mapping sessions, group work, and discussions on films.

Elective

The study of international politics assumes gender neutrality, which tends to render women invisible in the global political economy order. In this course, we question the assumption that international politics should be gender neutral, deconstruct the role of gender in the field, and view the role of gender in transformative global change. Particularly, we employ a gendered and intersectional lens to study global and domestic political and economic processes.

Elective

How do goods/products get from producers to consumers? Global supply chains are involved in the global system of organizations, people, processes, and resources that transform raw materials into finished products. Additionally, these complex processes and networks are responsible for delivering finished products to consumers. In this course, we will first lay a foundation for understanding global supply chains, drawing from political science, economics, and management. Next, we will engage in critical analysis of the process and network with respect to issues that include human rights, gender, the environment, and labor standards. We will correspondingly examine the roles of actors such as governments, firms, consumers, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations involved in global supply chains. This course adopts the flipped classroom approach, requiring students to spend one class session a week preparing for active learning activities in the second class session of the week.

Elective

How do goods/products get from producers to consumers? Global supply chains are involved in the global system of organizations, people, processes, and resources that transform raw materials into finished products. Additionally, these complex processes and networks are responsible for delivering finished products to consumers. In this course, we will first lay a foundation for understanding global supply chains, drawing from political science, economics, and management. Next, we will engage in critical analysis of the process and network with respect to issues that include human rights, gender, the environment, and labor standards. We will correspondingly examine the roles of actors such as governments, firms, consumers, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations involved in global supply chains. This course adopts the flipped classroom approach, requiring students to spend one class session a week preparing for active learning activities in the second class session of the week.

Elective