Pratt Institute
Main Brooklyn Campus
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Campus Map & Directions:

http://www.pratt.edu/about_pratt/visit_pratt/



ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
 
For more information about our B. A. major, please visit
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal_arts_and_sciences/critical_visual_studies/

Pratt Institute Admissions
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions/

Pratt Institute
Main Brooklyn Campus
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Campus Map & Directions:

http://www.pratt.edu/about_pratt/visit_pratt/



ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
 
For more information about our B. A. major, please visit
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal_arts_and_sciences/critical_visual_studies/

Pratt Institute Admissions
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions/

In February, students in SUST 401 Power, Pollution & Profit took a tour of Pratt's historic power plant.  Chief engineer Conrad Milster guided the tour, recounting the long history of powering the institute.  

Students in Sustainability Studies courses also toured Newtown Creek, participated in Pratt's Sustainability Crash Course and Green Week, participated in lectures from faculty in SSCS, Math & Science, Industrial Design, Humanities & Media Studies, and interned with the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies.  

2014-15 promises to be an even bigger year in the Sustainability Studies program, as the fall semester includes two sectors of SUST 201 (Mondays 2pm with Carl Zimring and Wednesdays 5pm with Jennifer Telesca) and additional elective options we will share once they are official.  If you are a Pratt Institute student interested in the minor, or in registering for sustainability courses, please contact School of Liberal Arts and Studies Academic Advisement Coordinator Erich Kuersten (ekuerste@pratt.edu) to discuss the possibilities.

Pratt Institute
Main Brooklyn Campus
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Campus Map & Directions:

http://www.pratt.edu/about_pratt/visit_pratt/



ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
 
For more information about our B. A. major, please visit
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal_arts_and_sciences/critical_visual_studies/

Pratt Institute Admissions
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions/

Bio: I work on the skins of things, excavating histories of technology and media from the surface layers of natural and man-made objects. I use tools from the fields of the history of science and technology, media production, art history, media studies and material culture studies to analyze the production, use, and transformation of often-overlooked, even marginalized, material artifacts located at the interstices of the found and the fabricated.
Through my analysis, I break down increasingly untenable divides between production and consumption, art and technology, and invention and reuse. From camouflage netting, old clothes, decomposing vegetable matter, and other artifacts of creative repurposing, I uncover historical shifts in modern epistemologies of self, nature and representation. Through my work, I not only contribute to the academic fields in which I am based, but also provide a vital historical and creative context for present-day concerns with the engineering of sustainable environments through innovations in transformational and biomimetic technology.
Critical media practice is a working method that both guides my analytic framing and provides interpretive data. As an example, my film Blind (2009) and my site-specific installation Camoufleurs (2008) accompany the book Hide and Seek. Producing the film and the installation, as well as the feedback I received from viewers and other participants, was crucial to the development of my theoretical and historical argument. 

More information: http://web.mit.edu/sts/people/shell.html



 

The Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies is pleased to announce an addition to the Minor in Sustainability Studies. The minor deepens the understanding of the interdisciplinary approach to sustainable environmental, economic, and social practices, providing students with a broad understanding of the complex interrelationships between humans and ecosystems and the best practices for protecting environmental quality and fostering social equity.

The minor can be combined with any undergraduate major and requires the completion of 15 credits approved in Sustainability Studies. Effective immediately, students may count CM 446 Sustainable Construction Management as an elective for the minor. The list of courses students may now use for the minor now includes:

SUST 201 The Sustainable Core (3 credits, required)
MSCI 270 Ecology (3 credits, required. May substitute MSCI 271 or 280)
CM 446 Sustainable Construction Management (3 credits, elective)
SUST 401 Power, Pollution, and Profit (3 credits, elective)
SUST 405 Production, Consumption, and Waste (3 credits, elective)
PHIL 356 Environmental Ethics (3 credits, elective)
INT 332 Environmental Theory (2 credits, elective)
IND 487 Sustainability and Production (2 credits, elective)
MSCI 426 Toxics in the Environment (1 credit, elective)
MSCI 438 Chemistry of Modern Polymeric Materials (3 credits, elective)

We expect to add more elective options to the minor next year. To register for the minor, or for any questions on these courses, please contact the coordinator Carl Zimring at czimring@pratt.edu.

Carl Zimring offers SUST 401 Power, Pollution, and Profit each spring.  In the first half of the semester, the class discusses the energy sources that have powered industrial society and the consequences of using these sources.  The second half of the semester focuses on evaluating our options for addressing those consequences going forward, and how paths developed over the past two centuries may limit or expand the options we have as we attempt to reduce industrial society's dependence on fossil fuels.

Since the class is discussing the uses of coal and oil in powering the Industrial Revolution at this stage of the semester, early February is an ideal time to visit Pratt's historic power plant and bask in the steam as the world outside is encased in ice.  Built to serve the Institute in 1887, the boilers transitioned from coal to oil apparently some time in September of 1888.  Modifications and improvements happened over the years, and this plant has served the school for over 125 years.

In 1977, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the plant a landmark, an intact example of how we have harnessed fossil fuel to power a school since the nineteenth century.  Touring this landmark gives students a far less dry (not only due to the steam) example of this important chapter of human history than a powerpoint lecture would convey.  

For almost fifty years, Conrad Milster has served as Pratt's chief engineer.  Each New Year's Eve concluding with 2013, he has connected steam from the plant to whistles that ring in the New Year.  He is an invaluable resource for the history of Pratt Institute, and we were fortunate in SUST401 to draw upon his expertise for a guided tour of the facility.  

We began our tour at the ground-level entrance of East Hall and looked down upon the General Electric
turbines on the floor below.  There is not much noise on the ground level, so Conrad gave the class some context for why the plant was built, how it evolved over the years, and what the students were going to see when they went down to the louder lower level (and talking would be more difficult).

After this introduction, the class descended the stairs to see the boilers in action.  This was loud but fascinating, as we saw the network of pipes and meters in place for decades do their work.  Students remarked that the boilers extended through under the sidewalks outside East Hall.  Looking up at a grate, one student remarked that he had walked over it so many times and had no idea what was beneath his feet.  The tour both provided a perspective on the history of energy in industrial society and raised awareness of the complex infrastructure we take for granted every day.

We thank Conrad Milster for his time and access to this historic landmark.

Review of applications begins December 12.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Pratt Institute invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty position, available Fall 2014. The successful applicant will be versed in ethnographic research methods and/or Participatory Action Research as well as the ethics of research with human subjects.  We will consider appointment at rank higher than Assistant Professor only for applicants with significant professional accomplishments.

Pratt is an internationally recognized school of architecture, art, design, information science, writing, and critical and visual studies.  Its strong programs in architecture, film, video, photography, computer graphics and other areas of art and design draw students from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds.  The Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies contributes to the students’ core education and also has its own major in Critical and Visual Studies. The Institute is located on a 25 acre campus in the historic Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES:

Teach six courses per year.
Contribute to the development of MA programs in Social Practice and/or Sustainable Coastal Societies, as well as to the BA program in Critical and Visual Studies.
Develop curriculum in Social Science and Cultural Studies.
Advise students.
Serve on department, School and Institute committees.
Provide outreach to other departments in the Institute.).
Complete individual research projects (e.g. publish in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and present at professional conferences
Perform all other related activities as required.

SALARY is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.

QUALIFICATIONS:

We require a Ph.D. in a core area of the social sciences, history, psychology or philosophy. ABD will be considered only for otherwise exceptionally accomplished applicants.  While disciplinary field is open, applicants must be able to contribute to the development of the MA program in Social Practice and/or the MA program in Sustainable Coastal Societies, as well as to the Department’s existing BA in Critical and Visual Studies. Candidates must have at least one (preferably two) year’s college level teaching experience in an institution other than the one in which terminal degree was earned. Strong evidence of future scholarly productivity is essential.

TO APPLY:

Please submit only your cover letter, resume/CV, and the names and contact information for three professional references.  Review of applications will begin on December 12, 2013 and continue until the position is filled.

PRATT INSTITUTE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER AND RECOGNIZES AND VALUES THE BENEFITS OF A DIVERSE WORKFORCE.

This year, the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies began offering a Minor in Sustainability Studies. The minor deepens the understanding of the interdisciplinary approach to sustainable environmental, economic, and social practices, providing students with a broad understanding of the complex interrelationships between humans and ecosystems and the best practices for protecting environmental quality and fostering social equity. The minor can be combined with any undergraduate major and requires the completion of 15 credits approved in Sustainability Studies. These may come from the following courses:
SUST 201 The Sustainable Core (3 credits, required)
MSCI 270 Ecology (3 credits, required. May substitute MSCI 271 or 280)
SUST 401 Power, Pollution, and Profit (3 credits, elective)
SUST 405 Production, Consumption, and Waste (3 credits, elective)
PHIL 356 Environmental Ethics (3 credits, elective)
INT 332 Environmental Theory (2 credits, elective)
IND 487 Sustainability and Production (2 credits, elective)
MSCI 426 Toxics in the Environment (1 credit, elective)
MSCI 438 Chemistry of Modern Polymeric Materials (3 credits, elective)
To register for the minor, or for any questions on these courses, please contact the coordinator Carl Zimring at czimring@pratt.edu.

May Joseph 
(Artistic Director of the Harmattan Theater and Professor of Social Science & Cultural Studies)
Tanzanian born Joseph is the Founder of the environmental collective Harmattan Theater.  Joseph has dramaturged and directed Harmattan’s site specific outdoor productions, exploring the history of New York City through architecture, design and environmentalism.  Islands, the Hudson River, riverscapes, ocean currents, sea walls, buried rivers, wetlands, bridges, and the impact of water across global urban environments are Joseph’s areas of interest.  Joseph has created large scale public performances on Governors Island, numerous piers in Manhattan including Christopher Street, as well as along Fourteenth Street in Manhattan.  Joseph’s artistic work includes cities in India, where she made a short film about the Yamuna River in Delhi, and is working on a site specific performance along the Fort Cochin seawall.
Joseph trained in Directing and Playwrighting at U.C. Santa Barbara’s Department of Theatre and Dance where she received a PhD in Theater. Joseph’s directorial interests lie in bringing together ritual, movement, mime, voice, images and text into dialogue with shorelines, rivers and cities.  Trained as a Bharata Natyam dancer, Joseph’s work draws upon the Indian environmental dance theater traditions of the Jatra, Chautu Nadagam and Indian street theater movements, Kalaripayyati, Kathakali, Kyogen and the experimental techniques of Arianne Mnouchkine and Christo.  Joseph is the author of Nomadic Identities and Co-Editor of Performing Hybridity, City Corps, Body Work and New Hybrid Identities.  She teaches theater, film and visual culture at Pratt Institute, New York. www.mayjoseph.com 

Left side of the “Spectrum of Life” exhibit in the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History Source: Image taken by Molly H. Adams September 2011

View of the Old Field, pond and trails from the deck on the East side of the South Fork Natural History Museum Source: Image taken by the Molly H. Adams, March 2012.

“Dzanga-Sangha Rainforest Diorama” in the Hall of Biodiversity and the American Museum of Natural History Source: (c) AMNH / Denis Finnin <http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/biodiversity/rainforest/

"The Hall of Biodiversity’s installation labeled the “Spectrum of Life” uses
more than 1,500 specimens and models, organized into 28 living groups to show over 3.5 billion years of evolution and to display the awe-inspiring diversity of life.  The Linnaean taxonomical approach of categorization, which is used in this display, groups all life into three kingdoms that are divided into classes, and then into orders, families, genera and species.  It helps viewers to see an extremely wide variety of different types of organisms by separating microorganisms from mammals and bacteria from birds.  This technique of organization emphasizes the quantitative aspects of biodiversity rather than qualitative ones. Because of this, the visual display of replicas and specimen fails to communicate the importance of each organism in the ecosystem of which they are a part.  In other words, somewhat ironically, the roles of ecosystems themselves are neglected, and rather the emphasis is placed on the range of different species and the diversity of their visual characteristics.  For example, several organisms are shown either in a linear fashion according to size, ranging from smallest to largest, or collected in naturalist boxes, neglecting to visually represent any ecological relationships that add biological meaning and context.  These organisms have been dissected from the communities and ecosystems in which they actually reside in nature, making it impossible to realize the greater context that they are pulled out of."