Architectures of Thought: Theories of Space and Imagination [4-weeks, $200 Suggested]

Instructor: Andrews | Tuesdays January 4-25 | 6:30-8:30 PM ET

Why do so many people dream of hidden rooms and secret passageways? (Freud) Do physical enclosures like fences and walls engender concepts like private property or freedom? (Marx) Is the family house really a privileged metaphor for mapping imagination? (Bachelard) Or is the fantasy that we all live in houses–as opposed to, say, apartments or being unhoused–already a privilege? (Cisneros) Can temporary spaces like waiting rooms and bus stations reconfigure our value systems for a fugitive existence? (Burroughs) And in the end, can fantasy be more powerful than enclosure; can fantasy in the hold be the very grounds of our freedom? (Moten) In this course, we’ll try to assess what exactly imagination is, and try to understand why so many theorists turn to histories, metaphors, and explanations grounded in the built environment. We’ll investigate what is made possible–but also, what is left out–by an architectural understanding of the imagination. In each of the four weeks, we will cover a different kind of structure–the enclosure, the house, the hold, and the city–and consider how philosophers have mobilized each to explain what thought is, and perhaps more importantly, how new thoughts and creative possibilities can emerge. Authors considered might include: Michel Foucault, Gaston Bachelard, Sandra Cisneros, Harriet Jacobs, William Burroughs, Timothy Murphy, Carl Jung, Ludwig Binswanger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Frank Wilderson, Fred Moten, Karl Marx, Silvia Federici, Liz Grosz, Christina Sharpe, Walter Benjamin, and Audre Lorde.

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