CAT 2: Buildings, Objects, and Stories
David Pedersen
Syllabus: CAT2_WI12_Pederson_Syllabus.pdf
Many tangible artifacts in everyday life, large and small, tell stories and make arguments: residences, meals, malls, monuments. They contain dominant stories, which are often enthusiastically about either nostalgia for a secure past or progress toward a more desirable future, and also less visible stories which often work in opposition to the dominant ones. These stories and histories are themselves composed of arguments and conflicts over ideas and material resources. We will be uncovering the histories contained within some of the material artifacts readily visible at UCSD in order to examine how culture works in general. We will talk about residence halls; the Price Center; the Chancellor’s house; and CalIT2, with attention to questions including urban planning, aesthetics, Native American cultural claims, the economics of construction, and campus energy policy.
