From Thoreau’s cabin to Wharton’s mansions to Dreiser’s skyscrapers and Ann Petry’s streets, American literature brims with vivid depictions of built environments that strongly influence individual lives, communities, and culture.
Exploring these stories to understand ways architectural elements can shape daily life and society is at the heart of a new certificate program being developed by an interdisciplinary team of WSU faculty in architecture, engineering, and the humanities. Creation of the five-course series is funded by a recent curriculum innovation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Dwelling in American Literature: An Experiential Program for Architects and Engineers “intends to bridge a significant disciplinary gap between engineering and the humanities for students and faculty at WSU and beyond,” said program co-developers Donna Campbell, professor of English, and Ayad Rahmani, professor of architecture in the School of Design and Construction.
Such transdisciplinary approaches to undergraduate education are vital to produce engineers and architects with a new level of innovation and social responsibility as well as humanists with a new appreciation for the tangible products of the world around them, the professors said.