Government Architecture
MIT, PhD Seminar
MIT, PhD Seminar
The state is a place. What can we learn from its
architecture? What can we hope from it, and how can it fail us? Combining
readings from political theory, political science, and architectural history,
this graduate seminar looks at government buildings as sites of mediation
between state, society, and market. We examine the design and reception of such
buildings, from the monumental to the mundane, looking at their interiors and
exteriors. What values do they express and how are they implicated in shaping
citizens’ subjectivities? How have they changed over time, and why? On what
grounds can we critically interrogate them, and what normative considerations
should guide their design? While our focus will be on the modern United States
and on the architecture of public administration, the class is open to
students' explorations in other times, places, and branches of government.
This class examines the moral and
political questions that arise over the lifecycle of a machine learning system:
from the genealogy of the technology, to problem definition and data
collection, model selection and training, evaluation, interface design,
deployment, use, and societal effects. By examining the case of machine
learning in detail, the class invites students to think more broadly about the
political agency of technology, and about the ways in which politics is already
embedded in technology. It brings work in STS, sociology, anthropology, and
political science into conversation with perennial concerns in political theory
about power, authority, legitimacy, justice, liberty, and equality.
An introduction to contemporary
political thought centered around the ideal of justice and the realities of
injustice. We examine what a just society might look like and how we should
understand various forms of oppression and domination. We begin by studying
three theories of justice (Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, and Egalitarian
Liberalism), then bring them into conversation with other traditions of
political thought that shed light on topics such as power, ideology, racism,
sexism, colonialism, and alienation.
A survey of
contemporary political theory with an eye to questions of concern in social
science. Each week is devoted to a political concept and to the normative and
interpretive questions surrounding it. Topics covered include: power, ideology,
repugnance, liberty, justice, equality, oppression, mystification, meaning, silence,
democracy, political ethics, and the agency of technology.
We spend a considerable part of our lives in buildings and cities designed for us by architects and urban planners. What normative considerations should guide the design of such spaces? What social role should architecture aim to play? And what criteria should we use to assess whether an architectural intervention is successful or not? This course seeks to address these questions by bringing architecture in conversation with political theory. It examines how political theory can inform our thinking about architecture, and how the work of architects and urban planners—with its attention to the specificities of the built environment—can advance our thinking about politics.
Collective action problems arise when actions that are individually rational give rise to results that are collectively irrational. Scholars have thought in these terms about a wide range of political phenomena. We examine their findings and probe the theoretical foundations of their approach. What does this way of thinking about politics bring into focus, and what does it leave out? What role do formal and informal institutions play in resolving collective action problems? And what if the required institutions are absent? Are we, as individuals, morally required to cooperate even if we expect that others may not play their part?
What is power? How should we conceptualize it? How should we go about studying it? This course introduces students to various ways of answering these questions. Readings are drawn from political theory, and from a variety of empirical disciplines, including political science, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.