Photo of CHARAS Archive, Box 1 — CentroPR Library & Archives.
Describe the ARCH 403 seminar and what you hope students will gain from the course.
Architecture professor Yazmín M. Crespo-Claudio, a 2026 HRI Summer Faculty Fellow, has developed a new seminar, ARCH 403: “Spatial Theories from/with the Caribbean,” which explores architectural theory grounded in Caribbean thought rather than viewing the region as a peripheral case study. The course draws on Caribbean writers and thinkers—including Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, and Frantz Fanon—to examine how colonialism, plantation economies, and migration have shaped distinct ways of understanding space. Central to the seminar is a commitment to thinking with the Caribbean’s intellectual traditions and communities, rather than extracting concepts from them. The Summer Faculty Fellowship gave Crespo-Claudio the opportunity to develop what she calls “archipelagic pedagogies,” teaching approaches that emphasize relation, situated knowledge, and collective practice over isolated or extractive study. Read the full interview to learn more about the course and her vision for teaching architecture otherwise.
Read the full interview on the Humanities Research Institute Inquiry Blog.
Photo of CHARAS Archive, Box 1 — CentroPR Library & Archives.
Taller Creando Sin Encargos and Natacha Quintero. “Play, Placemaking, and Participation” in Huerto Comunitario, Vivero y Bosque Urbano de Capetillo, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.