The Princeton-Mellon Initiative is pleased to announce the below courses offered by project faculty and fellows for Spring 2025. Registration opens December 3 for seniors.
ARC 205 / URB 205 / LAS 225 / ENV 205
Interdisciplinary Design Studio / Mario Gandelsonas and Aaron Shkuda
The course focuses on the social forces that shape design thinking. Its objective is to introduce architectural and urban design issues to build design and critical thinking skills from a multidisciplinary perspective. The studio is team-taught from faculty across disciplines to expose students to the multiple forces within which design operates. [Distribution area LA; core Urban Studies course]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=014225
SPI 300
Policy Research Seminar / Babak Manouchehrifar
The junior policy research seminar serves to introduce departmental majors to the tools, methods, and interpretations employed in policy research and writing. Students may choose from a range of topics. [Distribution Area SA]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=012122
URB 340 / AFS 344
Everyday Urbanism and Food Systems in Contemporary Africa / Blessing Masuku
Africa is urbanizing faster than any region of the world. This course analyzes socio-spatial dynamics that create urban life in Africa and generate inequalities arising from urbanization. Students will investigate the links between urbanization, infrastructure systems and informality, and how these shape and connect to food systems and impact the food security of urban residents. Upon completing the course, students will be able to recognize and challenge reductionist narratives concerning contemporary urbanism and explore possibilities for intervention, re-design and change. [Distribution area CD or SA]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=017693
ANT 342
The Anthropology of Law / Souvanik Mullick
In combining historical and anthropological perspectives with legal studies, the course explores how law is created and enforced in diverse societies and multiple spheres, inside and outside formal juridical institutions. We will address foundational legal questions related to themes such as sovereignty, citizenship, indigeneity, property, crime, carcerality and human rights--always in comparative perspective, and probing law's controlling and transformational potentials. How can the anthropology of law help us to better understand past and present ideas of justice and be a mobilizing force in the quest for social and environmental justice? [Distribution area EM]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=000185
URB 345 / ARC 345 / ART 357
Urban Nature and Society, 1450-1800 / Jennifer Strtak
This interdisciplinary course explores the dynamic relationship between urban development and the natural environment between 1450 and 1800. Contrary to the common perception of nature as existing solely beyond urban boundaries, this course reveals how cities have always intertwined with natural elements that required protection, restoration, and even creation. Through engaging discussions and written assignments, students will gain a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between urban growth and environmental stewardship, and how these historical insights can inform contemporary urban and environmental practices. [Distribution area HA]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=12…
ARC 346 / RES 346 / EAS 336 / ART 317
Modern Architectures in Context: Cities in Asia / Da Hyung Jeong
This course examines how politico-ideological and environmental discourses have shaped cities and their architectures in colonial and postcolonial Asia. Paying close attention to select cities including Almaty, Dhaka, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Islamabad, New Delhi, Pyongyang, Phnom Penh, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Tashkent and Tokyo, it aims to provide a preliminary answer to the increasingly urgent questions: what are the specificities of `Asian' modernity, and how was this modernity embraced and contested in urban contexts throughout Asia? For each city under study, a notable work of architecture will be singled out and subjected to close reading. [Distribution Area HA]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=017559
URB 384 / AMS 386 / HIS 340 / ARC 387
Affordable Housing in the United States / Aaron Shkuda
This course introduces students to the ways that policy, design, and citizen activism shaped affordable housing in the United States from the early 20th century to the present. We explore privately-developed tenements and row houses, government-built housing, publicly-subsidized suburban homes and cooperatives, as well as housing developed through incentives and subsidies. Students will analyze the balance between public and private, free market and subsidy, and preservation and renewal. Close attention will be paid to the role of race in structuring the relationship between policymakers, property owners, renters, and homeowners. [Distribution area HA]
https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course-details?term=1254&courseid=017175