"This seminar brings together two distinct but complementary modes of inquiry: anthropological inquiry into forms of reasoning and design practice that focuses on experimentation with material forms. The premise of the collaboration is that both modes of inquiry entail “concept work,” or attention to the ways that concepts both shape material practice and can be given form through material practice. The seminar will be project-centric. Students will be encouraged to bring a topic or theme to the class, which they will explore through a combination of lenses and approaches from the social sciences and design (i.e. text-based inquiry and inquiry through materialization). The structure will consist of three phases, based on an open-ended syllabus, to be developed with the members of the seminar depending on research interests and project proposals: 1. Concept shifts: An initial set of readings on concept work (Foucault, Rabinow, Marcus) will be followed and enhanced by tailored readings that will serve to open new perspectives and paths of inquiry, as related to students’ research interests and project proposals. 2. Elaborations of propositions and speculations: Idea generation using “what if… “ scenarios, speculative design methods, and extrapolations of emergent practices. 3. Materializations: Experimenting with a range of media including text, narrative form, photography, models, performance, and video to materialize the students’ various proposals. "