This course aims to challenge old beliefs about what you can do with writing. It invites inquiry and helps you to think about research as an energized idea. In Integrative Seminar 2 you will be encouraged to pursue topics you find perplexing and fascinating. How can curiosity lead you to ask productive questions and get answers to them? How can you create a writing process that is organic and unfolds over time? In the first half of the semester quick assignments will introduce you to a variety of research methods and help you to define an area of interest. In the second half of the semester you will pursue your own research based project connected to studio. Throughout the semester, you will read texts which explore a wide array of forms that researched writing can take. Once again, studio and seminar will come together through a series of bridge projects that highlight the components of the research process: inquiry, context, investigation, interpretation, argument, connections and reflection. Bridge projects are the basis of the collaborative relationship of ideas between the two courses. They ask you to engage with writing as a form of making, and making as a form of thinking, in order to explicitly and productively blur the boundaries between seminar and studio. This section will be framed through the inflection: Visual Culture Visual culture refers to images that surround us. Meaning is embedded in the endless images, spaces, and artifacts that make up our visual culture. How can we learn to unearth the ideas being communicated through a broad range of forms – art, advertisements, products, fashion, photography, illustration, architecture, performance, technology etc. What new and unexpected forms demand our scrutiny?