How is it that a work of art may now double as a restaurant, a barter network, a walking tour, a scientific study, a town hall meeting, a dance party, and vice-versa? Since the turn of the 21st century, artistic projects that invite exchange, imagine new social relationships, and provoke individual and collective actions have grown increasingly influential, especially amongst a younger generation of creative practitioners around the world. This transdisciplinary approach is typically characterized by collaboration across liberal art and art/ design disciplines. Rather than being the product of a single artist working within an isolated studio, artists’ participatory practices are driven by the desire to connect, to look outside oneself in meaningful and tangible ways, and to positively impact daily life within specific publics— and often co-created with people with a variety of life experiences. For these works to have an impact as both action and artwork, artists, designers, writers, scholars, architects, urban planners, and curators (among others) must develop a unique set of social and material skills. They must demonstrate an awareness of local histories and a nuanced understanding of the relationship between social justice, polemics and poetics, and learn a set of critical tools that can help an artist work in this field and improve their practice. This course offers a theoretical and historical foundation for students interested in performative and participatory works, socially-engaged practices, or across their own disciplines, whether they are studying in the liberal arts, art and design, or the performing arts. It will introduce some of the economic, political, and aesthetic forces that have influenced the emergence of these contemporary art and design practices. Through assigned texts, case studies, possible site visits, writing assignments and group projects, students will investigate art historical legacies that challenge the boundaries between “art” and “life”; study methodologies stemming from social justice movements, new ways of teaching and learning, and ethnography; and engage in current debates regarding the ethics of cultural production in the public sphere.