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HPSS S464-01
OPEN SEMINAR
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This experimental course offers students the opportunity to seriously explore some topic or question in history, philosophy, or one of the social sciences, which has a bearing on their degree project. Students will be guided through the process of formulating a research project, identifying the relevant literature, critically reading that literature, and working out how the HPSS material (content and/or methodology) can deepen and enrich their studio practice. We'll look at some artists and designers who have made these sorts of connections but spend most of the time in discussion of student work. Coursework will be tailored to the needs of individual participants. To obtain permission to register for the course, send an email to the instructor with the following information: your name, major, year in school (junior, senior, graduate student), and a description of (a) your studio degree project, as you currently conceive of it, and (b) the area, topic, or question in history, philosophy, or the social sciences that you want to explore.
Elective
HPSS S483-01
ELECTION 2024
SECTION DESCRIPTION
As part of a broad civics and liberal arts education, the main goal of this course is to provide students with the opportunity to increase their knowledge of US elections, US electoral demography, and the US political system. In addition to a focus on the campaign(s) for the US Presidency in 2024, this course will explore the cultural, demographic, social, and spatial dimensions of the current US electorate, identify and examine important swing states and congressional districts in the race for control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, detail the stakes involved for control of these two governmental bodies, analyze image-making in and the visual culture of US political campaigns and elections, and detail the mechanics and mechanisms of US elections and US electoral cycles. The main theme addressed in this course will be the dynamic of and dialogue between a particular cultural and social moment in US history and the course and outcome of US political campaigns and elections. Additional themes that will be developed in this course include: the on-going diversification of the nominees put forward by US political parties; splits (within and without) in the ideology and positioning of the Democratic and Republican parties; and the evolving demography and political positioning of the US electorate. In this regard, this course will look forward to and prepare students to analyze and grapple with the run-up to and results of the next US Presidential election on November 5, 2024. As young adults whose lives, in many ways, will be shaped by the outcome of US elections present and future, the over-arching objective of this course will be to raise students’ civic awareness and underline the importance of US elections in articulating, defining, and reflecting the identity and future of America as a nation.
HPSS S539-01
BUDDHISM AND SOCIETY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is an exploration of the ways in which Buddhist philosophy and religious practice, and the commercial works of Buddhist temples, shape societies both where Buddhists are a majority and minority. In this lecture-based course, we will explore the diverse manifestations of Buddhist doctrines, practices, and institutions across a wide array of socio-historical contexts. More specifically, we will learn about how Buddhist communities, artistic conventions, narrative traditions, and cosmological understandings have been influenced by, and exercise effects upon, distinct historical, economic, political, and cultural settings. Our functional premise is that religion is never divorced from its time and place, and also that Buddhist thought makes its way into countless objects, legends, and cultural productions even outside of Buddhist communities. Apart from reading texts from the disciplinary perspectives of religious studies, history, and anthropology, we will also engage with the impressive collection of Buddhist artefacts at the RISD museum and take part in field trips to interact with practitioners at two Buddhist centers in the Greater Providence Area. Evaluations will include (but are not limited to) regular written assignments, brief quizzes, and an end-of-term debate concerning a topic pertinent to the course’s themes.
Elective
HPSS S656-01
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
As the study of behavior and mental processes, psychology allows us to better understand how people think, feel and act. This introductory course provides a broad overview of the major content areas within the field of psychology (e.g., physiological, developmental, social and cognitive psychology) and will introduce you to the psychological theories and research used to understand human behavior. We will cover a wide variety of topics, including how people learn, process and store information, why people possess distinct personalities, how social situations and cultural norms affect our behavior, how we grow and develop throughout our lives, etc. Throughout the course we will critically evaluate the merit of classic psychological theory and research in understanding people's thoughts, feelings and actions in real world situations. This course will provide a broad knowledge base for those interested in taking upper level psychology classes.
Elective
HPSS S702-02
INVENTIVE POLITICAL ECOLOGIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Inventive Political Ecologies. This course will critically interrogate the many different proposals for inventive political ecologies that have emerged out of the critical social sciences, technology and engineering studies and the broad fields of design, planning and architecture. We will collectively discuss and debate what these inventive political ecologies might offer for addressing and acting on the environmental and climate crisis. We will consider ways in which discussion of “invention” and “innovation” can both open up and sometimes narrow eco-political and environmental discussions. Finally, we will continually consider which inventive political ecologies might help us move towards designing and building more just post-carbon futures.
Elective
HPSS S731-02
SOCIOLOGY & POLICITAL ECONOMY OF DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Designers and architects are constantly making objects, systems, services, infrastructures but they are also involved in dream making, desire shaping and negotiating power relations. The aim of this class is to introduce students in an accessible way to the wide-ranging insights that a sociology of design and architecture offers for understanding and evaluating the contours of our current designed economies and possible future designed worlds. We will explore design and architecture as forms of classed, raced and gendered labor and look at the tensions that have long existed between professional designers and publics. We will consider the ways in which the mainstream design industry is shaped by and a shaper of politics and culture and consider how it is embedded within and maintains markets, fossil capitalism, consumer culture and colonialism. We will appraise what sociologists and design theorists have to say about possible future design economies and societies based on digital surveillance, automation/robotics, and bio/geo-engineering. Finally, we will critically examine at a range of critical design social movements: from design justice to decolonial designers, feminist designers to designs for decarbonization and sustainable transitions which argue more just and ecological design worlds are still possible.
Elective
ID 20ST-01
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Dear Student,
No matter what professional design direction we choose, we will work with people. This studio is about cultivating a people-centric design practice. Public engagement is about listening, and is an intricate process that informs decisions and approaches towards change.
We will begin by co-creating our studio’s space, and practice intentional methods for collaboration and critique. Our first projects will be to find the tools and spaces where we already engage with people. We will learn about concepts like the ‘user’, then interrogate and integrate them meaningfully into our work through understanding our positionality, exercising question design, interview protocols and survey best practices.
Larger projects in this studio will include a collaboratively curated experience for our ID community. We will practice prototyping with smaller sketch models, and at full scale with power tools and found materials. Assignments will be based on creating presentations, short videos, sketches, models and mapping tools. We will learn more about the city of Providence and other communities through case studies, documentaries, field trips, archives, walks and conversations with people. This studio is about finding unconventional connections by studying existing public engagement, learning about its historically complex and problematic contexts and systems, and ethnographic practices, and by designing intentional and inclusive experiences for people.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-02
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors were first conceptualized as story-based empathy-building devices by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, a renowned scholar in the field of sociologically engaged inclusive literature. Windows represent the possibility of looking into another world, or another person’s experience. Mirrors represent the ways in which we might see ourselves reflected in the content or characters of a story. Sliding glass doors are emblematic of opportunities to not only view, but to step inside and inhabit an experience from a new perspective. In this course, we will delve into concept, form, and practice in order to analyze and critique objects, systems, and practices that surround us within the built environment. Through making, research, and experimentation, students will engage with essential critical concepts including restorative history, decoloniality, representation, and advocacy as they pursue projects that help us to envision designed experiences that are more just.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-03
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Juniors take two 3-credit Special Topic Design Studios in the Fall semester. Juniors choose one 3-credit option from the Content category such as Packaging, Typography, Play, or UI/UX, and the other option from the "Process" category such as Casting, Soft Goods or Prototyping. Students will gain multiple competencies by utilizing techniques and methodologies through practice and process. Each studio meets once per week.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-04
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Mainstream games, such as Monopoly and Settlers of Catan, instill competition among players while also normalizing capitalist and settler-colonial relations with the world. Meanwhile tools used in “community engagement” and “participatory design” in architecture, design, and planning fields make attempts at community collaboration yet are unable to hold institutions accountable. After introducing students to current participatory design practices, the studio asks what if we could design games to enhance grassroots collaborative processes held by and for the community ? Students will develop a set of specifications for game rules and components that build collaboration, imagine just relations, source materials ethically and sustainably, and challenge the systems in which public design projects are conducted. Participants in this class will learn with one another by analyzing existing games, learning about both injustices and liberatory practices from histories of BIPOC communities, prototyping their own games, and playtesting them on campus.
Key words: Participatory Design, Community Engagement, Game Design
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-05
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Have we considered what it truly means to critique? This course explores the role of critique, dissects real-life cases and challenges existing methodologies to foster more just and equitable ways to look at design. We'll closely examine how professionals, clients, and stakeholders present and evaluate design work to critically reflect on methods within ID for ethical and inclusive practices. Engaging in workshops, role-playing, and discussions, students will reshape their understanding of design and critique, fostering decolonized, equitable, and empathetic approaches. By the conclusion of the studio will have designed and developed tools and models for public and private critique. Students will be equipped with enriched perspectives and a comprehensive toolkit of critique and discussion methodologies that are continuously applicable in future practices.
Keywords: Designing Critiques, Feedback methods, Ethical Approaches, Design Methodologies
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-06
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Juniors take two 3-credit Special Topic Design Studios in the Fall semester. Juniors choose one 3-credit option from the Content category such as Packaging, Typography, Play, or UI/UX, and the other option from the "Process" category such as Casting, Soft Goods or Prototyping. Students will gain multiple competencies by utilizing techniques and methodologies through practice and process. Each studio meets once per week.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-07
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Historic and contemporary industrial design legacies are contributing to changing our climate, threatening our ecosystems, and harming our non-human relatives. Human centered approaches to design and sustainability will not get us out of this planetary catastrophe. Many global Indigenous nations have urged western countries to shift their worldviews from individualistic to kin-centered as a way to prevent planetary disaster. What does this mean for industrial design which plays a major role in how our species interacts with the Planet? How can our design systems embody kinship? These questions will be the guide for our thinking as we seek to imagine and create systems and infrastructures that center the wellbeing of many species within an ecosystem, and conceive design interventions that support trans-species co-habitation of the world around us. This course will exercise students’ imagination as we engage what habitable structures could be that might welcome the insects, the rodents, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the plants, and so on. Students will engage a range of texts, media, guest speakers, and non-human observation activities to nourish their understanding of trans-multi-species design. Students will look at how other species design and exist in trans-multi-species kinships as well as other human groups who have been including other species in their systems. The course will result in students making habitable structures that take up the tasks of being trans-multi-species inclusive. Students will leave the course with an understanding of how the emerging future can be grounded in kinship designs, doing away with human exceptionalism.
Key Words: Human Centered Design, More than human design, Design for Adaptation, Design for Kinship, Planetary Design, Global Indigenous Designs Thinking.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-08
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Juniors take two 3-credit Special Topic Design Studios in the Fall semester. Juniors choose one 3-credit option from the Content category such as Packaging, Typography, Play, or UI/UX, and the other option from the "Process" category such as Casting, Soft Goods or Prototyping. Students will gain multiple competencies by utilizing techniques and methodologies through practice and process. Each studio meets once per week.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-09
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
As software integrates into every aspect of our lives, digital product design has more impact than ever. While most interface patterns are mature and commoditized, generative AI models offer new possibilities for human-computer interaction. In this exciting time, designers must adapt and shape the frontier of AI-driven computing.
Students will learn standard methodologies and tools for digital product design while experimenting with AI-assisted processes to execute their ideas into working prototypes. They will develop unique creative perspectives through projects, ultimately creating an interactive digital product. The instructor's professional practice in digital products, experimental AI interfaces, and programming will guide the course.
By course's end, students will have hands-on experience with an end-to-end digital design process, integrate AI into their workflow, and develop a distinctive portfolio piece showcasing their adaptability and creativity. Prior coding experience is not required, but students will learn using AI assistants like ChatGPT.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-10
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The course investigates the structural dynamics of practice-related organizational processes via two- and multi-dimensional proportional systems, progressively evolving and adapting modules, using symmetries, rhythms, series and patterns.
The purpose of this visual research is to systematize the total design process, from the selection of consistent visual vocabularies and color schemes, to framing the interconnecting bridges for the visual work, as well the organization and control of content components to facilitate comprehension of communication systems (wayfinding, diagramming, identifies and signage, etc.). Studio work is supplemented with theoretical lectures and handouts on aspects of systems design. Some knowledge and competency in beginning typography and the language of two-dimensional design is helpful.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-11
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Juniors take two 3-credit Special Topic Design Studios in the Fall semester. Juniors choose one 3-credit option from the Content category such as Packaging, Typography, Play, or UI/UX, and the other option from the "Process" category such as Casting, Soft Goods or Prototyping. Students will gain multiple competencies by utilizing techniques and methodologies through practice and process. Each studio meets once per week.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-12
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Our physical experiences lead us to expect the user interface as a tactile and grounded reality that fulfills our intuitive expectations for how things should work in the virtual world’s interactions, inputs, and consequences. Considering this “Material Design” and Gestalt-grounded philosophy, this course will focus on prototyping a mobile app interface, coding an open-source W3CSS framework-based website for variable screen resolutions, and critical use of neural network generative technologies, utilizing tools of artificial intelligence such as text to speech, generative image production, prompt engineering, and web software tools for developing video content and communications. These combined pursuits allow for exploration of the most current technologies available to designers for realizing their visions as tangible assets.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-13
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Juniors take two 3-credit Special Topic Design Studios in the Fall semester. Juniors choose one 3-credit option from the Content category such as Packaging, Typography, Play, or UI/UX, and the other option from the "Process" category such as Casting, Soft Goods or Prototyping. Students will gain multiple competencies by utilizing techniques and methodologies through practice and process. Each studio meets once per week.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design
ID 20ST-14
SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this class you will learn the specialized and nuanced vernacular of time-tested, highly descriptive, and straightforward explanatory illustrations. These techniques excel at conveying complex ideas, quickly troubleshooting issues and allow for visual discourse across language barriers and career fields.
This course will cover the exploration and explanation of a variety of engaging sketch techniques, useful tricks of the trade and insight on how to gauge and facilitate the level of detail and information necessary for a variety of real-world industry situations.
During this course the student will be imparted with an essential cross-curricular skillset that can be used effectively across the vast and varied 21st century career landscape. Students with a basic grasp of drawing fundamentals are preferred for this course. We will engage in regular group critiques of student work, and will focus on the quality of execution, the ease in which information is delivered, and experimenting on new and unique descriptive sketch techniques.
Those taking this class are expected strive toward distilling the art of storytelling into a purely visual format.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Industrial Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design