HSOC-272: El Niño FX: Water

This course explores our relationship to water, and how access to this vital resource shapes our cities, societies, cultures and imaginations. It is structured as a collaborative workshop combining field work, interdisciplinary research and creative speculation. To ground our inquiry we will tour several hydro-infrastructure sites where local sources of water are controlled and/or where more distant supplies are collected, treated and delivered to our taps. Presentations and background readings will unpack these sites in relation to counter-models and creative expressions drawn from other times, places and cultures, all with an eye toward revealing the embedded assumptions, entrenched interests, social implications and aesthetic dimensions of our current water supply. No prior experience or background is assumed, and all majors are welcome in this multi-disciplinary space: we will learn key analytic concepts from natural history, geography and sociology, and also use lenses from film, science-fiction and environmental literature to imagine alternate ecologies. Participants with prior water-related research interests are invited to use the workshop as a forum for adding depth and complexity to their investigations. Cumulative projects will emphasize independent and/or collaborative research based in student interests. Conjectural propositions and other experimental means of re-imagining linkages between natural history, urban development, and hinterland networks will be encouraged.