Announcing: CriticalProductive edited by Architecture Professor Milton S. F. Curry

After two pilot issues, the journal has launched a media-rich inaugural volume, "Sovereignty / Populism," and dedicated itself to disseminating experimental scholarship and creative work to a broad audience.

AAP Communications

2020 BLM protests in Seattle, Washington. image / Ulysses Curry (@ulysses_image). © Copyright Ulysses Curry.

CriticalProductive Journal's inaugural Issue No.01: Sovereignty / Populism (2024) edited by Milton S. F. Curry, Professor of Architecture and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement at Cornell's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), utilizes thought-provoking articles and interviews, compelling imagery, and sophisticated graphic design to explore matters of culture, arts, and architecture. The journal, Curry says, "represents a fresh take on lifting cultural criticism and visual culture into urgent public discussions of politics and urban space. On behalf of the editorial team of CriticalProductive, I am pleased to offer readers a provocative and visually stimulating read."

The journal is accessible in full online through March 15, 2025.

I think it's important to emphasize that when the term "populism" enters the English language, at the end of the nineteenth century with the populist movement in the United States, it is invoked by a politics so far from an authoritarian, leader-based, right-wing, white supremacist politics — what Jason Stanley refers to today as fascism. This workers' agricultural, egalitarian, left-wing movement, against corporate monopoly and the corrupt institutions of a purportedly representational state, involved incredible efforts at cross-class mobilization.

— Jason Frank in "Conversation: Sovereignty and Populism" (p. 33)

A full-scale mock-up called the BIHOME, designed and built by UCLA architecture students under the guidance of Kevin Daly Architects and cityLAB. Photograph by Photekt. Courtesy of cityLAB. In Architectures of Spatial Justice by Dana Cuff. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2023, 27. image / provided

Black-and-white photograph of Hortense J. Spillers, 1966–1995, Box 3, Folder 38, Hortense J. Spillers papers, John Hay Library, Brown University Archives and Manuscripts, Providence, Rhode Island. Photograph courtesy of Hortense J. Spillers. image / provided

If you look at the roots of the populist movement in the United States, those first commotions at the end of the nineteenth century involved mainly farmers, and much of it was taking place across racial lines in Southern states. The toxicity that has poisoned the possibility of class-bound relations across the racial divide is one of the major problems that we have today, and it is the problem with populism.

— Hortense J. Spillers in "Conversation: Sovereignty and the Black Subject" (p. 55)

CriticalProductive's contributors include Cornell-affiliated scholars:

Editor Milton S. F. Curry, Professor of Architecture and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement (AAP)

Editorial Collective

Peter Gilgen, Director of the Institute for German Cultural Studies and Associate Professor (A&S)
Lily H. Chi, Associate Professor of Architecture (AAP)
Ben Uyeda (B.Arch. '04, M.Arch. '05)
Amanda Williams (B.Arch. '97)

Issue No.02: Currents and Flows is set for a summer 2025 publication date. The call for projects for Issue No.03/04: Non-Space / Resistance is now open, with a submission deadline of March 2025. Submission guidelines are available online.

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CriticalProductive Journal is one of many recent faculty publications that will be featured during AAP's annual Launchpad event on March 19, 2025. Launchpad is held in Milstein Hall and is free and open to the public. The event includes presentations by the authors, as well as a reception with opportunities to peruse and purchase many of the publications.

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Announcing: CriticalProductive edited by Architecture Professor Milton S. F. Curry

After two pilot issues, the journal has launched a media-rich inaugural volume, "Sovereignty / Populism," and dedicated itself to disseminating experimental scholarship and creative work to a broad audience.

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