400016 SE Social Science Approaches to the Built Environment (2018S)

While the “natural” environment has received its fair share of social science attention in recent years, primarily due to environmentalist concerns surrounding climate change and other alarming ecological processes, the notion of the “built” environment has often been limited to discussions of architecture and design in urban settings. This course will encourage a broad reading and discussion of social approaches to the built environment, ranging from critical infrastructure studies to political ecology to actor-network-theory and dwelling perspectives.