JPG1522H: Production of Space: Aesthetics, Technology, Politics

This seminar investigates articulations of aesthetic, technological and political forces in the production of space — understood as the triad of 'conceived space’, 'perceived space' and 'lived space,' following Henri Lefebvre's influential theorization in The Production of Space. With reference to intellectual resources drawn from several strands of critical theory, space figures here as something radically contested, and dialectically related to social relations. The work of artists, architects, planners, geographers, scientists, technocrats and politicians, along with influential conceptions such as 'modernism,' 'avant-garde,' 'culture industry,' 'spectacle,' 'alienation,' 'governmentality,' 'subjectivity,' 'ideology,' 'decolonization,' 'utopia,' and 'revolution' will feature prominently in this course, in order to theorize how space and society are co-produced, and why various political projects — capitalist, nationalist, fascist, colonial, socialist, feminist — are also spatial projects. As such, the prime objective of this course will be to develop critical-theoretical as well as conjunctural awareness of aesthetic, technological and political mediations of the socio-spatial dialectic — with special attention to the work of architects, urban designers, planners, and geographers in the context of subaltern citizens pursuing their 'right to the city.'

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St. George