Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design/Origins Stories - Codesigning Architectural History (Fall 2021)

ABSTRACT

What is an architect’s role in ushering in a “multipolar” and “pluriversal” world where no group dominates and every form of expression has its place? How can we do justice to those within and outside an incomplete canon that has ‘othered’ the spatial traditions of those ensnared by caste systems (Wilkerson 2020): Black, femme, queer, migrant, and otherwise diasporic folx? Rather than ask these questions rhetorically, we will venture to answer them practically in a participatory mode of “co-design” that seeks to reconstruct the bibliographies that we source our traditions from. While some frame global histories of architecture “as the history of successive and often dramatic changes spurred on by new materials, new technologies, changing political situations, and changing aesthetic and religious ideals” (Ching et al. 2017), this course offers perspectives showing that there is no linear progress narrative of architecture. By going beyond the well-trodden Western-centric historiography of the architecture discipline’s “starchitects”, we aim to spark a sense of complexity, unsettledness, and plurality in the learners’ journey toward arriving at their own point-of-view on this eternally emergent story of architecting.

Architectural history is a relatively new academic discipline rightly and repeatedly under critique from leading artists (i.e. the Black Reconstruction Collective). The instructor aims to help students mediate that by continually ask themselves “What is the real origin story of global architecture?” and “What about the other hidden histories of ideas left out of the mainstream story?” The instructor will use his background in Black Diaspora Studies, quantum metaphysics, and futurism to disturb any essentialist and static notions of borders, empire-building, and Blackness. We will take an interest in crucial contact zones in Central Asia, South Asia, pre-Columbian North America, and the Mediterranean North Africa to co-produce a complex view of the flows of spatial ideas.

Furthermore, by using collaborative learning and commonly accessible forms of scholarship (i.e. Wikipedia), we hope to use our institutional privileges at University of Pennsylvania to reclaim and to democratize the intellectual means by which architectural materializations are made meaningful: narratives and stories. Architectural discourse urgently needs future narrators who will light that more welcoming and inclusive path where all belong.

Week 1
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia
 * Empowering diverse stories of cultural heritage

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 2
Art History

Cultural Anthropology

Ecology

Sociology

Week 3
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 5
Guiding framework

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 6
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
 * Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.

Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.