LIB1201 Research and Documentation for the Information Age:
In this course students explore information issues including: how information is produced and organized; political, economic and cultural factors that impact information access; and the ethics of information use. Students also acquire practical research skills through hands-on collaborative learning. Students apply what they learn in a final group project where they research an information problem and create prototypes for new information tools.
LIB/ARCH2205ID Learning Places:
This special topics course uses an interdisciplinary approach to teach students about architectural, social, and cultural dimensions of urban environments. This course combines place-based field work, research, and project based learning, using methodologies developed in multiple disciplines. Students from a variety of departments engage in on-site exploration and in-depth research of a location in New York City.
*In Fall 2018 Prof. Christopher Swift from Humanities and I adapted this Interdisciplinary course to focus on public performance, place, and social justice. Prof. Swift and I were able to meaningfully draw from our own scholarship for the curricular redesign. By employing tenets of critical pedagogy and drawing specifically on situated and affective learning methods, the concept of “place” within the framework of the course is more expansive and includes sites of contestation where socio-political change occurs. I have taught the course collaboratively and using the guest lecture model.
The course centers real-world issues and through guest lectures and site visits, students interact directly with people who are reshaping New York City before creating their own public interventions. Recent guests have included City Tech faculty from the Hospitality, Human Services, Humanities, and Chemistry Departments as well as:
- Anna Tsomo Leidecker, No North Brooklyn Fracked Gas Coalition activist
- Ellie Irons, New School Faculty and urban ecologist and founder of the Next Epoch Seed Library
- Marcus Wilford, BIG Landscape Architect
- Lindsay Campbell, U.S. Forest Service
- Emily Johnson Catalyst, Indigenous land use activist and dancer / performance artist
- Juan Barahona, Real Estate Developer
- Marisa Prefer, Landscape Steward for Pioneer Works
- Amin Husain, NYU faculty and the lead organizer for Decolonize This Place
- Nicholas Martin, archivist at the Fales Library Downtown Collection
- Hugh Sillitoe, UK based performance artist and scholar of absurd street theater
- Andrea Haengii, founder of the Environmental Performance Agency
- Mike Clemow, sound artist and founder of Radio Free Gowanus
- Abby Subak, former Director of Arts Gowanus
- Amber Hickey, Indigenous scholar and faculty at Colby College
- Lisa Bloodgood, Director of Advocacy and Education at the Newtown Creek Alliance
