In this Making + Meaning: HISTORY course, students will make prints and books that engage histories of political speech in visual culture through a critical investigation of the contemporary United States prison industrial complex. Through reading, viewing, and listening, the class will engage with the contexts and histories of incarceration, policing, surveillance, and borders to design and make their own printed work. Class time will be divided between discussions of readings and other references, field trips to archives and exhibitions, and learning to make simple bindings and set and print type. Larger conceptual questions that underpin our work will include: How might we draw on and learn from histories of political expression to imagine contemporary possibilities of this work?, What does it mean to make politically- or socially-engaged materials, and what work do text and image do to create meaning and mobilize people?, What is the relationship of printed material to communication in digital times? Making+ Meaning 3: HISTORY calls into question our assumptions about time and space that form our concepts of history, in particular design history and cultural theory. We will ask what makes, and distinguishes, facts and values. We will imagine alternative futures and consider what it means to “make” our present. Concepts such as contingency, teleology, and progress will be introduced. The course places particular emphasis on imaginaries of time and space that not only make themselves felt in how history is told, but also affects how we encounter other histories. Students will be encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar experiences in the Making + Meaning courses.