Who Comes After the Human?
University Curriculum: University Curriculum
CRN: 15946
Credits: 3
This course is an intellectual and practical experiment, combining two relatively new discourses and methodologies: speculative forms of design practice and the posthumanities. The first incorporates poetics and conceptual nuance as the driving force in the practice of design, while the latter reboots the humanities for an age in which "the human" is no longer presumed to be strutting around the center of the cosmic stage. More specifically, this class will ask ""who, or what, comes after the human?"" in an age in which machines, artificial intelligence, viruses, animals, radioactive particles, plastics, climate catastrophes, hyperobjects, and other non-human elements, share an increasingly complex and entangled world. In doing so, it will essentially create a space in which students can audition just a sample of some of the different "subjects" or "agents" that co-determine our future, but have, until very recently, been sidelined or ignored completely. Such a task is all the more urgent, given the fact that "the human," as deployed in the traditional humanities (or indeed in the world of design), has been definitively unmasked as a scandalously limited representative of the species (i.e., white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied, affluent, universalist, and so on). This class thus seeks to show how design approaches can help thinkers from the humanities transcend their own blinkers, and vice versa, in the interests of better seeing the catalysts, and challenges, of what's already problematically called the Anthropocene. In terms of format, it will be an experimental, hybrid lab-studio-classroom space, combining seminars, brainstorming sessions, charettes, and extended moments of writing and/or making. Please use this form if you would like to register for this course and include a brief outline of your motivation for taking the class, a PDF of project work, link to a portfolio website, or writing sample.
College: University Curriculum (UL)
Department: University Curriculum (UNIV)
Campus: New York City (GV)
Course Format: Seminar (R)
Modality: In-Person
Max Enrollment: 16
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: 8:34pm EDT 9/7/2024