Bartlett School of Architecture professor to speak about ‘housing biopolitics and care’ April 19 at ISU

04/12/17

AMES, Iowa — Peg Rawes, a professor of architecture and philosophy at the Bartlett School of Architecture University College London, will present “Housing Biopolitics and Care” as part of the Iowa State University Department of Architecture Public Programs Series.

Rawes’ presentation will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, in Kocimski Auditorium, room 101 College of Design. It is free and open to the public.

In her lecture, Rawes will outline how 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy “constitutes a human and ethical ratio within a biopolitical discussion of the UK housing crisis,” she said.

“For Spinoza, ratio constitutes different modes of environmental, corporeal and societal lives. Drawing from Foucault’s writings on technologies of the self and Spinoza’s geometric essay ‘The Ethics” from 1677, I explore how Spinoza’s ‘radical enlightenment’ thought has resonance with architects and professionals who challenge the inhumane ratios of inequality that currently form UK housing provision.”

Rawes examines this topic in “Equal By Design” (Lone Star Productions, 2016) a 25-minute documentary film co-authored with Beth Lord, a professor of philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. It can be viewed online at www.equalbydesign.co.uk.

Workshop

Rawes’ lecture will be preceded by a workshop exploring architecture, feminism and equity from noon to 5 p.m. in the Hansen Exchange and Beckman Forum of the College of Design’s King Pavilion.

• 12:00 – 12:45 p.m. Presentation by Assistant Professor Shelby Doyle, the Daniel J. Huberty Faculty Fellow in Architecture, and Lecturer Leslie Forehand on their work with the Architectural Humanities Research Association
• 12:45 – 1:15 p.m. Presentation by third-year architecture student Megan Zeien on the Department of Architecture’s TILL publication’s work on architecture and feminism
• 1:15 – 4:30 p.m. Workshop on “Rendering Equity” facilitated by Peg Rawes
• 5 p.m. Workshop products compiled and projected outside Kocimski Auditorium

Sign up online for the free workshop. Contact Doyle with questions.

About the speaker

Rawes is director of the architectural history master’s program and a supervisor for the architectural design and architectural history and theory PhD programs at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in art history from the University of Leeds (1990), a postgraduate certificate in learning and teaching in the visual arts from Oxford Brookes University (1994), a Master of Arts with honors in philosophy and literature from the University of Warwick (1996) and a PhD in the history of art from Goldsmiths College (2004), all in England.

Rawes’ research focuses on social, architectural and material ecologies. She is the author of “Humane and inhumane ratios” in the Architecture Lobby’s “Aysmmetric Labors: The Economy of Architecture in Theory and Practice” (2016); editor of “Relational Architectural Ecologies: Architecture, Nature and Subjectivity” (Routledge, 2013) and co-editor of “Poetic Biopolitics: Practices of Relation in Architecture and the Arts” (I.B. Tauris, 2016).

Contacts

Shelby Doyle, Architecture Public Programs Committee, (515) 294-8711, doyle@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, Design Communications, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

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April 12, 2017 9:55 am

Tags: Lecture