PLHT
3020

Making + Meaning: Theory

Parsons School of Design: Sch. Art and Dsgn Hist and Th

Liberal Arts
Undergraduate Course
Degree Students
M + M: Art in the Anthropocene
Fall 2024
Taught By: Rory O'Dea
Section: A

CRN: 15994

Credits: 3

The contemporary concept of the Anthropocene envisions humanity as a geological force of nature that is uniquely responsible for and complicit in the extreme transformations of the planet’s ecologies. In this hybrid seminar and studio course, we will use writing, research, and making to investigate the ways that art and visual culture have profoundly shaped humans’ knowledge of and relationship to the more than human world. With a focus theory, this course brings together a multitude of disciplinary perspectives including art history, deep ecology, eco-feminism, Marxist ecology, indigenous knowledge systems, new materialist theory, and posthumanism to critically examine the ways that diverse human cultures have defined nature and the human relationship to it. Using the frameworks of eco-aesthetics, eco-poetics, and eco-fictions, we will explore new ways in which contemporary art and design can interact with and become immersed in ecological contexts and develop practices that envision and shape new possibilities for cultivating an ecologically sustainable and socially just relationship to the Earth’s diverse eco-systems. In Meaning + Making: Theory, we address the relationship between theory and practice. This long-standing debate will be addressed through some of its historical and contemporary expressions. You will be challenged to develop their own balance between theoretical and practical work in text and making. We will ask, “what makes something a theory? What kind of a hierarchical relationship do you think exists between theory and practice? Why?” We will assess social, political, and historical phenomena of the material world through a critical framework of writing and making. In Making+Meaning classes, students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar pathways into this sequence.

Open to: All university undergraduate degree students. Some seats have been reserved for BFA Design History and Practice majors.

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: Sch. Art and Dsgn Hist and Th (ADHT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Seminar (R)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 15

Add/Drop Deadline: September 9, 2024 (Monday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: November 17, 2024 (Sunday)

Seats Available: No

Status: Closed*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 11:42pm EDT 10/15/2024

Meeting Info:
Days: Wednesday
Times: 12:10pm - 2:50pm
Building: Parsons 2 W 13th
Room: 1100
Date Range: 8/28/2024 - 12/4/2024
M+M: Voice: Lost & Found
Spring 2025
Taught By: Radhika Subramaniam
Section: A

CRN: 14020

Credits: 3

This course explores the implications of voice as property in politics, identity, law, culture and relationships. Examining a range of questions — What does it mean to find or lose one's voice, to raise one's voice, or to give voice? Whose voices are recognized? Is voice only human? Through readings, art and performance work, we will consider what it means to voice and be silent, to listen and to be heard. We will think about hesitations, interruptions, screams and sighs, noise, clarity and accents as well as growls, purrs, and insect and machinic hums. Students will be encouraged to explore the possibilities and limits of our mouths and ears. As part of the Making and Meaning sequence, this course opens the range of engagement and translation—that is, we will explore questions using a variety of sources and research methodologies and experiment with outcomes that could be textual, visual, performative and time-based. We will engage with theoretical and historical texts as well as art in a variety of modes and media, including literature, visual and performance art.

Open to: all undergraduate degree students. Some seats are reserved for Design History and Practice students.

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: Sch. Art and Dsgn Hist and Th (ADHT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Seminar (R)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 18

Add/Drop Deadline: February 3, 2025 (Monday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 15, 2025 (Tuesday)

Seats Available: Yes

* Seats available but reserved for a specific population.

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 11:42pm EDT 10/15/2024

Meeting Info:
Days: Tuesday
Times: 12:10pm - 2:50pm
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 1/20/2025 - 5/6/2025
M + M: Carceral Geographies
Spring 2025
Taught By: Mev Luna
Section: B

CRN: 15869

Credits: 3

Carcerality, or logics of policing, imprisonment, and surveillance, is often conceptualized within the parameters of the Prison Industrial Complex and the United States. However, when considered through a global context, carcerality takes on numerous manifestations, frequently appearing at the margins and outskirts of society. This course intends to (1) explore subjugated selves beyond the idiom of suffering; (2) Turn to carceral geographies and spaces of detainment as forms of meditation, as well as systematized practices of dehumanization; (3) Navigate methodologies that not only represent epistemological ruptures but also challenge the boundaries between theoretical and practical knowledge. Together, we will traverse forms of writing and thinking that explore varying textual and artistic utterances produced in and through contested spaces. This course's conceptual framing aligns with feminist, decolonial, and critical race theory writ large. We will study thinkers and artists such as Saidiya Hartman, Jasbir Puar, Alexander Weheliye, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Nicole R. Fleetwood, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Adrian Piper, Jackie Wang, TT Takemoto, Sable Elyse Smith, and others. Integrating these methodologies, students will critically engage themes of detainment, scenes of subjugation, and figurations of freedom through their art and design practices via embodied research, spatial interventions, and the creation of new propositional works. In Making + Meaning: Theory, we address the relationship between theory and practice. This long-standing debate will be addressed through some of its historical and contemporary expressions. Students will be challenged to synthesize theoretical and practical work in text and making. We will ask, “what constitutes theory? What kind of a hierarchical relationship do you think exists between theory and practice? Why?” We will assess social, political, and historical phenomena of the material world through a critical framework of writing and making. Students will be encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar experiences in the Making + Meaning courses.

Open to: BFA Design History and Practice students; other undergraduate degree students as space permits.

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: Sch. Art and Dsgn Hist and Th (ADHT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Seminar (R)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 18

Add/Drop Deadline: February 3, 2025 (Monday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 15, 2025 (Tuesday)

Seats Available: Yes

* Seats available but reserved for a specific population.

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 11:42pm EDT 10/15/2024

Meeting Info:
Days: Wednesday
Times: 12:10pm - 2:50pm
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 1/20/2025 - 5/14/2025