Architectural History Research Workshop: Spatial Histories of Health

Catalog description

This course aims to build students' skills working with and interpreting visual and textual primary sources relevant to the study of the built environment. The course is structured around particular themes that will animate how historians use methods of visual, spatial, and material analysis to illuminate intersectional histories of the built environment attentive to questions of race, class, gender, (dis)ability, environment, empire, and more. Students will gain methods of interpretation to explore the agency of individuals and groups in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities and sites. The aim is to develop confidence with reading urban and architectural documents-floor plans, perspective drawings, photographs, three-dimensional artifacts, maps, design periodicals, etc.-and connecting them with broader historical themes. The course will be structured as a hybrid lecture and methodology workshop, with each week including both components.