Fall 2020 ︎︎︎ SUNY Purchase ︎︎︎ (DES4100) Community Design

What is Community?

This class will primarily be centered on the question, what is community? We’ll examine, through work and discussion, what this question means, to us as individuals and as a class.

What do communities look like?

Self-examination

What communities are you are part of?
What works for you about them?
How big are those communities?
What does “membership” mean in these communities?
What other names would they go by?
What aspect of these groups are socially constructed and culturally fed back to you?

Viewings, part 1

We’re going to watch a in preparation for a discussion and related assignment(s). Take notes. They must be scanned/photographed and handed in at the end of the semester. Because of the time-sensitive nature of much of the in class works, you’ll have to view these outside of class. I will provide links to services you can watch it on, possible free places to watch it and host screenings/viewing parties for these. I may need to also provide some context for some of these. We’ll set a “due date” for viewing and the related discussion soon.

Star Trek: Voyager, “Unity” Season 3, Episode 17 (1997)
The Fresh Prince of Belair, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse”
Season 4, Episode 24 (1994)
The Fate of the Furious (2017)

While, and after watching think about the following:

What are the “communities” involved in each piece of media and how do they form?
How are people who are exiled from a given community or group treated?
How and when do they break the bonds of said community?
For what purpose was the community or group originally formed? Was it voluntary or coincidental?

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