News | October 29, 2019
‘I belong in this community.’ A new museum tells the Pacific Northwest history of Latinx identity
It’s 2 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon and the crowd at a new Mexican American cultural center in South Park is at capacity. Bailadores de Bronce, Washington’s oldest Mexican folkloric dance group, takes the stage to present two distinct traditional dances that reveal the variety within Mexican culture. “I think when I was growing up I had…
News | December 12, 2019
‘Blue’ space: Access to water features can boost city dwellers’ mental health
Officials are increasingly recognizing that integrating nature into cities is an effective public health strategy to improve mental health. Doctors around the world now administer “green prescriptions” – where patients are encouraged to spend time in local nature spaces – based on hundreds of studies showing that time in nature can benefit people’s psychological well-being and increase…
News | August 14, 2019
‘Vehicle ranching’ in Seattle: Inside the underground market of renting RVs to homeless people
Richard Winn considered himself a decent landlord, particularly in a cutthroat rental market like Seattle’s. Sometimes his tenants did not pay their $75 weekly rent, and weren’t required to sign a lease or put down a deposit. But there were trade-offs. Winn never gave residents keys to their units. Tenants were not to use the…
News | February 10, 2022
‘We have to adapt’: US Pacific north-west weighs plans to cope with extreme weather
First came the heavy snow in late December that blanketed Seattle and the surrounding area. Then the torrential rain and flooding hit in early January. One by one, four of the region’s main mountain passes were deemed impassable, and a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5 south of Seattle was closed. It was the first time…
News | April 4, 2024
‘Work of passion:’ How Catalina Velasquez’s life led her to immigrant rights advocacy
Originally reported in The Washington State Standard by Grace Deng. Ask Catalina Velasquez anything about queer, feminist immigrant rights. She’ll have an answer. Velasquez heads Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, which is the largest immigrant-led coalition in Washington, alongside Brenda Rodriguez Lopez. A refugee from Colombia herself, Velasquez was the first transgender Latina appointed as a…
News | October 8, 2020
163 veteran Metro bus drivers are retiring, taking 4,400 combined years of memories
You bet they have the stories. Decades of them. They’re a group with at least 4,400 combined years of memories. They’re the 163 older King County Metro bus drivers who this summer applied and were approved for a “voluntary separation” package, although that number might increase a bit. It meant saving the jobs of younger…
News | September 7, 2021
2021 Urban@UW Spark Grants awardees announced
Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the second round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The two projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Among Vehicle Residents: A Case Study of the Seattle Public Utilities’ Recreational Vehicle Wastewater…
News | September 14, 2022
2022 Urban@UW Spark Grants Awardees Announced
Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the third round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The three projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations. Analysis of a Food Bank Home Delivery Program Food security, defined as access at all times to nutritious food,…
News | September 3, 2020
75 years after WWII, those who lived it share how it changed them, Seattle
PEACE! ran across the top of the Sept. 2, 1945, edition of The Seattle Sunday Times. Japan had surrendered. World War II was over. Peace, wrote a reporter from aboard a battleship, had formally come to the entire world after history’s most devastating war. “Today, the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great…
News | June 26, 2024
A Biochar Solution for Urban Runoff
Written by Julia Davis for the University of Washington In cities around the globe, stormwater runoff remains largely untreated, collecting everything from heavy metals to pesticides before flowing into our waterways. This environmental challenge requires innovative solutions, and biochar may just be the key. CEE Assistant Professor Jessica Ray and graduate student Amy Quintanilla are…
News | March 19, 2024
A New ‘Holy Grail’ in the Housing Crisis: Statewide Rent Caps
Reported in The New York Times by David W. Chen As housing costs soar, Washington State wants to limit annual rent increases to 7 percent. Oregon and California have passed similar measures. With her husband struggling at times to find work, Ms. Horn has maxed out her credit cards to keep pace with the…
News | April 4, 2019
A University of Washington Course Gives Design Students Real-World Experience
For ten weeks, seniors in the University of Washington’s School of Art + Art History + Design Advanced Industrial Design program: Professional Practice course mulled over things like materials, functionality, and empathy. Their challenge was to create workspace furniture—everything from stools and accessories to informal meeting tables with integrated power—that would follow a complete design…
News | November 9, 2020
A UW student’s 3D video game depicts life during COVID-19 pandemic for people of color
During the pandemic, many people have leaned into art and hobbies to ease the stress of everyday life. For Chanhee Choi, a multidisciplinary interactive artist and Ph.D. candidate in the University of Washington Digital Arts and Experimental Media department, art became a way to reflect on her experience with discrimination and racism as a Korean in America during the…
News | July 22, 2024
A week of nonstop breaking political news stumps AI chatbots
Reported by Heather Kelly For The Washington Post In the hour after President Biden announced he would withdraw from the 2024 campaign on Sunday, most popular AI chatbots seemed oblivious to the news. Asked directly whether he had dropped out, almost all said no or declined to give an answer. Asked who was running for…
News | April 5, 2022
A1 Revisited: The Seattle Times’ coverage of the 1942 removal of 227 Bainbridge residents left a harmful legacy
Sometimes the only way forward is to look back. This week marks the 80th anniversary of the first removals of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast. Starting with 227 residents of Bainbridge Island on March 30, 1942, women, men and children were forced to leave their jobs, schools, homes and the lives they knew…
News | June 7, 2016
Access To Nature In Urban Areas Is Key To Healthier Living
Mental illnesses and mood disorders are more prevalent in urban areas partly due to reduced access to nature, according to a new study. Researchers probed the rising tension between the critical role of urban areas and these cities’ debilitating aspects that disconnect people from nature – and even raise mental illnesses. “There’s an enormous amount…
Course | AFRAM 405
Advanced African American Studies in Social Science
Advanced study of racial formation, Black cultural production, and resistance among people of African descent throughout the Diaspora. Social science theories and methods used to examine various topics, including social scientific analysis of political history; social movements; intellectual traditions; theory; and intersections with urban, digital and legal studies; race, science, and biopolitics; public health and environmental studies.Course | GEOG 477
Advanced Urban Geography
Geographic patterns and social processes within metropolitan areas. Canvases current research topics, methods, and theoretical debates in urban geography. Issues covered range across urban economic, political, and cultural geography.Course | AFRAM 370
African American Political Thought
Political ideologies and philosophies of pivotal African American historical figures and the conditions under which these ideologies are developed, rejected, and transformed. How ideologies relate to solution of African American political problems.Course | AFRAM 246 / POL S 246
African American Politics
Survey of African Americans within the U.S. socio-political processes. Situates African Americans within a post-civil rights context where there is debate about race's centrality to an African American politics.Course | HSTAA 540
African American Urban History: 1700-2000
Examines the growth and evolution of African-American urban communities from the colonial era to the present, with particular emphasis on cities of the West.Course | HSTAA 313
African Americans in the American West
Explores pre-1848 Spanish-speaking black settlers, slavery, post-civil war migration, buffalo soldiers. 19th and 20th century black urban settlers, World War II migration, the civil rights movement in the West, the interaction of African Americans with other people of color. Particular focus on Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.News | September 1, 2020
After push from Native organizations, King County will add tribal affiliations to its homelessness database
For the first time since government officials began collecting data on the thousands of people living homeless in King County, a new category on people’s tribal affiliations will soon be added to the system. The move comes after a years-long push from Native homeless service providers to collect better information on Native people in the county’s federally mandated homelessness database. In recent years, these providers have demanded…
News | August 4, 2020
After two months of protests, Seattle activists say work not done
The mass protests against police brutality and for racial equity that have dominated Seattle and the nation for the past two months are like few others in American history — a sustained, daily movement, in major cities, sleepy suburbs and rural towns, with no central organizing hub, driven by social media and word-of-mouth. Locally, the…
Scholar
Alexandra Harmon
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Alexes Harris
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Alma Khasawnih
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ART H 390
American Architecture through an Ecological Lens
Introduction to the history of American architecture and urbanism as seen from an ecological perspective, from the time of indigenous inhabitants to the present.Course | AIS 308 / ENVIR 308 / HSTAA 308
American Indians and the Environment
Examines the historical relationships American Indians have possessed with local environments, with special attention to the ways these peoples have adapted to altered environments and new conditions, including migrations, involvement with markets of exchange, overhunting, dispossession, conservation, and mainstream environmentalism.Course | AIS 335
American Indians and the Law
History of laws governing American Indians: aboriginal law systems, U. S. laws, and contemporary tribal laws. Effects of laws and legal institutions on contemporary Indian identity and tribal status, self-government, land ownership and use, natural resources, religion, family life, cultural and spiritual practices, crimes and punishment, and federal responsibilities for Indians.Course | AAS 372
American Internment and Incarceration: Race, Discrimination, and Power
Explores the racial animus, failure of political leadership, and war hysteria in WW II that resulted in Japanese Americans incarcerated into American concentration camps. Conceptually different internment camps held thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian alien nationals. Topics include why, how, past and present concerns.Course | HSTAA 508, URBDP 565
American Urban History
Intensive lecture/seminar designed to provide students the opportunity for immersion in historical scholarship that addresses social, economic, political, technological, and cultural forces that have shaped the development of American cities.Course | HSTAA 426
American Urban History Since 1870
Development of American cities for the past century. Topics include physical development, immigration, politics, and changes in society and culture.News | April 21, 2020
Amid a pandemic, geography returns with a vengeance
The pandemic is redefining our relationship with space. Not outer space, but physical space. Hot spots, distance, spread, scale, proximity. In a word: geography. Suddenly, we can’t stop thinking about where. Over the past few centuries, new technologies in transportation and communication made geography feel less critical. The advent of railway and refrigerated train cars in the…
Scholar
Amit D. Ranade
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Amoshaun Toft
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Andrea Gevurtz Arai
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Angelina Godoy
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Ann Frost
Visit scholar websiteDegree Program
Anthropology (BA, BS)
Anthropology is one of those rare fields that touches on all others. It is not a "conveyor belt" to a specific job, but, rather, an avenue to reach many possible career paths. Anthropologists today don't just work in exotic locals, but are making significant contributions right here at home. They can be found working in…
Visit program websiteCourse | ANTH 427
Anthropology in Urban Settings
Cross-cultural examination of theoretical issues in anthropology as studied in urban places. Focuses on ethnic identity and the formation of urban ethnic groups; migration and its rural and urban consequences; family and kinship organization as an adaptation to urban complexity; the nature of urban voluntary associations; law and politics; and the developments in anthropological method.Course | ENVIR 371, ANTH 371
Anthropology of Development
Development refers to social, economic, cultural, political transformations viewed as progress. Studied from anthropological perspectives. Historical, social context for emergence of ideas of development. Role of development in promoting national cultures. Impact of development on individual citizenship, families, rural-urban relations, workers, business, environment.Course | ANTH 376
Anthropology of Disability
Introduces anthropological perspectives on disability. Considers disability as produced through the interaction of bodily impairments with social structures, political economies, cultural norms and values, individual and group identities, institutional orders, medical practices, assistive technologies, and other factors. Considers ethnographic studies of disability in international as well as U.S. settings.Degree Program
Anthropology of Globalization
Anthropology of Globalization is a new and exciting option in the Anthropology Major that explores several aspects of today’s interconnected world, including, economic exchanges, new media, human migration, and circulating knowledge. Unique to our program is a focus not only on contemporary multicultural and global exchanges, but also the deep history of such processes over…
Visit program websiteCourse | ANTH 540
Anthropology of Place
Explores a variety of ways that "place" has been studied and theorized. Attention paid to places as they are sensed, inscribed, practiced, narrated, scripted, created, and reclaimed. "Place" also discussed in relation to issues of the environment, travel, diaspora, race, class, and gender.News | September 29, 2020
Applied Research Fellows develop tool to explore population changes in King County
The 2020 Population Health Applied Research Fellows concluded their 10-week program to produce small area population forecasts at the Census tract and Health Reporting Area levels by sex, race, ethnicity and five-year age groups for King County from 2020 to 2045. Their findings, which were presented to staff from a variety of King County departments,…
Scholar
Arbella Bet-Shlimon
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ART H 493 / ARCH 459
Architecture Since 1945
Theories and forms in architecture from the end of World War II to present. Includes new wave Japanese architects, recent Native American developments, and non-Western as well as Western trends.Scholar
Ariel Rokem
Visit scholar websiteNews | September 8, 2023
Armed with Traffic Cones, Protestors Are Immobilizing Driverless Cars
All it takes to render the technology-packed self-driving car inoperable is a traffic cone. If all goes according to plan, it will stay there, frozen, until someone comes and removes it. An anonymous activist group called Safe Street Rebel is responsible for this so-called coning incident and dozens of others over the past few months….
News | December 3, 2019
As more people use RVs as homes, should cities find a place for them?
Graham Pruss is familiar with the trials and tribulations of living out of an RV. As part of his research for his anthropology PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle, Pruss bought and lived in an RV for five months. Within the first 12 hours of doing so, he says, police issued him tickets and former…
Scholar
Aseem Prakash
Visit scholar websiteCourse | AAS 385
Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans: Race, Law, and Justice
Explores relationship of race, law, and justice in history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans. Examines how challenges and resistance to racial discrimination, inequality, and colonialism transformed our political and legal justice system. Issues include citizenship, immigration, sovereignty, gender, civil liberties, national security, work, property, language, education, and marriage.Course | AAS 310
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the Pacific Northwest
Examines the history and lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander communities in the Pacific Northwest from the eighteenth century. Topics include immigration, labor, gender, community building, challenges to racial discrimination and inequities, and activism to achieve social justice. Emphasizes Washington/Seattle with discussion of Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia.News | September 2, 2016
August Sees New Grants, Project Launches, and Original Research and Writing
August was a busy month at the University of Washington and the Seattle region when it comes to urban research, writing, and project launches. Take a look at what’s been happening. Urban@UW will be running a half-day workshop as part of the Eighth International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2016.) Our workshop seeks to bring…
Degree Program
BA in Geography with Data Science Option
The B.A. in Geography with Data Science Option builds on geography coursework in data management, data visualization and the societal implications of data science while offering students additional opportunities to engage in coursework in programming, machine learning, and advanced statistics and probability. This series of coursework allows students to graduate with evidence of data science…
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Barbara Reskin
Visit scholar websiteCourse | POL S 481
Big City Politics
Contemporary big city politics, focusing on Seattle and the largest twenty-five cities. Social, economic, and political trends that have shaped characteristics of large American cities. Distribution and use of economic and political power among parties and groups. Future of large cities and politics of change.Course | GWSS 332 / GEOG 332
Black Feminist Geographies
Stereotypes about blackness, gender, and sexuality are enmeshed with how we think, feel, and move about the landscapes we move through - and black people are often seen threatening presences that "need" to be policed, contained, and completely erased. This course considers how black feminist approaches to geographic space reveal ways that these restrictive understandings of blackness, gender, and sexuality are refused and redefined.Course | AFRAM 315
Black Identities and Political Power
Relates the deployment of political power within institutions to shifting racial identities. Shows how racial identities both reflect and inflect relations of domination and resistance within and between cultures in the black diaspora.News | May 24, 2017
Black life is draining out of Seattle, census shows
South King County has long been a place where people with modest incomes could find a home. Now more people are coming, driven by high rents in Seattle. And a University of Washington School of Sociology researcher has found that African-Americans are among the most affected by this wave of displacement. Tim Thomas of the…
Scholar
Bo Zhao
Visit scholar websiteNews | September 7, 2022
Boost in Support for Black-Owned Restaurants Short-Lived, UW Study Finds
A new study from the University of Washington found much of the outpouring of customer support for Black-owned restaurants during the summer of 2020 was short-lived. As Black Lives Matter protests sparked calls for racial justice and equity in the weeks and months following the murder of George Floyd, tech companies including Yelp, Instagram, Google…
Scholar
Bryna Hazelton
Visit scholar websiteNews | January 23, 2024
Building community resilience: A $2 million NSF grant will transform disaster response
Amy Sprague January 16, 2024 “Our advantage of being an interdisciplinary project at the University of Washington is that we are drawing from an excellent corps of researchers with complementary expertise at a University whose mission includes working for the greater good across the state of Washington and has excellent ties into our communities.” Professor…
News | November 19, 2019
Can Amazon shake its suburban mindset and become a responsible urban citizen?
What kind of urban citizen is Amazon going to be? High tech companies are traditionally a suburban phenomenon, and the burbs have been a gentler place for expansion than the heart of a city. The prototype, of course, is Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, and Seattle’s Eastside. In such places tech companies could sprawl,…
News | April 14, 2020
Can Rainier Beach develop without displacing its residents?
Catch the light rail southbound, and when you erupt from the tunnel after Beacon Hill station, you see a city shifting: multicolored duplexes and mixed-use buildings. Continue, though, and development dissipates. In Rainier Beach, Seattle’s southernmost neighborhood, empty lots and old buildings flank the tracks. “Many of the things we were told would occur as…
Scholar
Carrie Freshour
Visit scholar websiteCenter & Lab
Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas (CSEAD)
The University of Washington Center for Southeast Asia & its Diasporas (CSEAD) is a National Resource Center for Southeast Asian Studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education pursuant to Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Established in 1986, the Center and the Southeast Asia Studies Program are a source of information on…
Visit lab websiteCourse | HSTAM 332
Central Middle Ages
Europe in the central Middle Ages: culture of cathedrals and universities, formation of national states, development of urban society.Course | CHSTU 256
Chicanas: Gender and Race Issues
Contemporary issues in the Chicana movement since the 1940s. Issues range from feminism and Chicana political, educational, and social organizations, to work, family, health, and the arts.Course | HSTAS 460 / SISEA 46
Cities in China: Past and Present
Economic, political, social, and cultural functions of the city in modern Chinese history. Changes in China's urban system. The city as cultural center and focus of literary and cinematic representation. Attention to architecture, commerce, urbanization, the role of capital cities in the power of the state.Course | GEOG 438
Cities of East Asia: Geography and Development
Examines urban development in East Asia from a geographic and comparative perspective focusing on issues in development, and the interaction of geography, history, politics, and economics. Major topics include economic development and urbanization; regions and urban systems; migration; urban social and spatial structures; globalization and governance.News | March 9, 2018
Cities, scientists unite in battle against climate change at U.N. summit
Climate scientists and city planners are to start charting a global roadmap on how cities can best battle climate change, when they gather at a U.N.-backed summit in Canada’s Edmonton on Monday. The three day gathering marks the first time cities rather than nations are offered a seat at the table of the Intergovernmental Panel…
Course | AFRAM 334 / HSTAA 334
Civil Rights and Black Power in the United States
Examines the politics and culture of the modern African American freedom struggle, which began after WWII and continued into the 1970s. Interrogates political strategies associated with nonviolent direct action, armed self-reliance, and black nationalism, as well as the cultural expression that reflect these political currents.Course | ANTH 207
Class and Culture in America
Anthropological view of the contemporary United States with emphasis on social class. Through ethnographic readings examines education, work, political economy, working class experience and the ideology of the middle class, and relations between class and race, gender, ethnicity, language, place, sexuality, and culture.Course | HSTAA 353
Class, Labor, and American Capitalism
The history of workers and class formation form early industrialization to the present. Emphasizes the interaction of class with race, ethnicity, gender, and political culture within the context of American economic development. Explores the role of unions, labor politics, and radical movements.News | April 18, 2019
Climate change as a social justice issue in Seattle
This story was written by Urban@UW communications assistant Shahd Al Baz, as part of her research with our program. Social justice paradigms hold that structural barriers to economic development drive, and are driven by, environmental and spatial conditions. We need look no further than Seattle to see this, where patterns of environmental degradation intersect with…
News | December 23, 2020
Community care research during dual pandemics: An update from Urban@UW Affiliates
This fall, with a grant from Population Health Initiative: COVID Rapid Response, the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity’s research team began a project on community care and mental health of Black/African American communities in Seattle. Led by Urban@UW Affiliates Ralina Joseph, Professor, Department of Communication and Director of CCDE; and N. Gina Aaftab, Assistant…
Course | GEOG 430
Contemporary Development Issues in Latin America
Contemporary development issues in Latin America, seen from a spatial perspective. Concept of development; competing theories as related to various Latin American states. Economic structural transformation, migration, urbanization, regional inequality, and related policies.Course | GEOG 303, JSIS A 304
Contemporary European Migration
Provides a theoretical and empirical understanding of contemporary migration processes and patterns in Europe. Introduces the different migration regimes and integration practices of selected European states. Analyzes the impact of globalization, the ever-changing role of the European Union, and the importance of international, national, and urban policy on immigrant lives.Course | JSIS A 464, SOC 464
Contemporary Society in the People’s Republic of China
Separate development of rural and urban social institutions in the People's Republic of China since 1949 from a sociological perspective. Family and marriage, social control, educational institutions. Dilemmas of contemporary China and reasons for institutional change.News | July 11, 2019
Could court fines and fees be keeping people homeless?
A new University of Washington School of Public Health study sustains a long-held argument that court-imposed fees and fines may keep the most vulnerable people ensnared in a vicious cycle of poverty and incarceration. The researchers found that, among a group of adults experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area, people with outstanding legal debt spent…
News | December 22, 2022
Covenant project unearths the threads of historical housing discrimination in Washington
It is not news that there were racial covenants built into the foundations of Spokane’s neighborhood developments during the middle decades of the past century. But a new state-funded research project is in the process of identifying every such covenant in Eastern Washington — and the tally is significant. The man who initially opened the…
News | August 3, 2021
Covid didn’t kill cities. Why was that prophecy so alluring?
From the moment U.S. coronavirus cases emerged in the Seattle area and then devastated New York City last spring, sweeping predictions about the future of city life followed. Density was done for. An exodus to the suburbs and small towns would ensue. Transit would become obsolete. The appeal of a yard and a home office…
News | November 26, 2024
Creating multi-sector teams to build cities where everyone thrives.
Research-to-Action Teams 2024-25 In April of 2024 two teams were selected for participation in the second cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory. For 18 months Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicated time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These…
Scholar
Cristina Lacomba
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ANTH 463
Critiques of Contemporary Capitalism
Karl Marx inaugurated radical reworkings of both social theory and political action. Begins with some of his seminal writings, then considers the Frankfurt School, British labor theory, and postcolonial theory. Uses these readings to understand economy and subjectivity produced through the aporias of late capitalism.News | May 2, 2018
CSDE Affiliates Examine Equity Issues Associated with Tolled Roads
Last week, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed instituting a toll on downtown roads to curb congestion. The Seattle Times examined the potential benefits and implications of the toll. In unpacking the possible equity issues, the Times turned to a 2009 study conducted by Affiliate Jennifer Romich, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work; Affiliate Robert Plotnick, Professor Emeritus at the Evans School of…
Course | ANTH 541
Cultural Aspects of International Development
Emergence of development as an aspect of late colonialism and the decolonization process. Ways in which development came to visualize social change in sectoral terms like rural land use, cities, and education, while objectifying people in target groups. Relationships between development and modernity, and development and globalization.Course | JSIS 202
Cultural Interactions in an Interdependent World
Introduces a critical approach to governance, violence, and development. Students will learn key concepts of cultural theory to understand how the world is socially constructed. Learning how to use interpretive methods, students will acquire new understandings of the varied approaches through which social scientists confront global challenges.Course | ANTH 150
Culture and Rights: Exploring the Meaning and Practice of Human Rights
Examines social justice issues with the aim of obtaining deeper understanding of human rights. Analyzes historical and theoretical foundations and introduces international and regional institutions designed to implement and enforce human rights. Case studies in sovereignty, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide, torture, truth commissions, and forgiveness.Course | AES 487 / ANTH 487
Cultures and Politics of Environmental Justice
Comparative survey of environmental justice movements in the world with focus on critical studies of environmental racism, risk, and sustainable development. Provides theoretical knowledge and research methods incorporating the study of equity and autonomy in environmental impact and risk assessment and other aspects of environmental policy politics.Course | ANTH 280
Cultures of Global Capital
Designed to introduce students to the study of cross-border phenomenon including global capital, migration, international philanthropy, and terrorism from an anthropological perspective. Introduces theories of globalization and the approaches anthropologists have taken in studying patterns of movement and circulation.News | December 3, 2019
Dads in prison can bring poverty, instability for families on the outside
Studies of the societal effects of prison often focus on the imprisoned: their physical and mental health, job prospects after release, their likelihood of returning to jail. A new study from the University of Washington looks instead at families of men who are, or were recently, incarcerated — specifically, at where these families live, how…
Scholar
Danny Hoffman
Visit scholar websiteNews | July 7, 2016
Data Science for Social Good 2016
This summer we are thrilled to be supporting the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program. Modeled after similar programs at the University of Chicago and Georgia Tech, with elements from eScience’s own Data Science Incubator, sixteen DSSG Student Fellows have been working with academic researchers, data scientists, and public stakeholder groups on…
News | May 1, 2021
Deepfake tech takes on satellite maps
While the concept of “deepfakes,” or AI-generated synthetic imagery, has been decried primarily in connection with involuntary depictions of people, the technology is dangerous (and interesting) in other ways as well. For instance, researchers have shown that it can be used to manipulate satellite imagery to produce real-looking — but totally fake — overhead maps…
Course | SOC 569
Demographic Studies of Stratification
Overview of development of models of socioeconomic achievement ("status attainment" paradigm) in the field of stratification. Begins with work of Blau and Duncan. Covers elaboration of basic models to include race and ethnicity, social psychological variables, class, school and labor market effects, and other structural variables.Course | SOC 513 / CSDE 513
Demography and Ecology
Theories and research on human fertility, mortality, mobility, migration, and urbanization in social/economic context. Comparative and historical materials on Europe, the United States, and the Third World.Course | GEOG 336
Development and Challenge in China
Examines the geography of China's development since 1949. Introduces China's physical geography, history, and economic and political system. Emphasizes China's uneven development in agriculture, population, industry, and trade. Also examines problems China faces in meeting its internal food demand, as well as the external processes of globalization.Scholar
Devon Pena
Visit scholar websiteDegree Program
Disability Studies (Minor, Major, and Graduate Certificate)
Disability Studies is a multi-disciplinary field that investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society’s understandings of disability. The Disability Studies Program's Minor, Major, and Graduate Certificate will introduce you to a critical framework for recognizing how people with disabilities have experienced disadvantages and exclusion because of personal and societal responses to impairment, and for exploring how…
Visit program websiteCourse | GEOG 479
Diversity and Segregation in Cities
Explores segregation and diversity within cities in the United States and elsewhere. Topics include the history of segregation; the measurement and dynamics of segregation and diversity; explanations for change in segregation and diversity in neighborhoods; and the effects of neighborhood segregation and diversity on social and economic outcomes for residents.Course | ANTH 497 / LSJ 425
Domesticating International Human Rights: Perspectives on U.S. Asylum and Refugee Law
Examines the creation, production, and proliferation of law and legal categories relating to the status of refugees and asylum-seekers in the United States. Integrates anthropological perspectives of law's ability to create meaning in the examination of deeper implications of asylum and refugee law in American society.News | July 2, 2020
Don’t be fooled by Seattle’s police-free zone
Seattle’s police-free “autonomous zone” is coming to an end. After two largely peaceful weeks, shootings over the last several days near the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, CHOP for short, left a 19-year-old man dead and three others wounded. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on June 22 that the city would retake the abandoned police precinct at the heart of…
News | December 5, 2019
Don’t blame tech bros for the housing crisis
Can Big Tech solve the housing crisis? That’s the hope behind recent announcements by Apple, Facebook and Google, which together total $4.5 billion in grants and loans to remedy the affordable-housing crunch in California and the Bay Area. Microsoft last year pledged $500 million to relieve Seattle’s similarly stressed market. While Amazon’s opposition torpedoed Seattle’s attempt in 2018 to raise revenue for homelessness services,…
News | May 20, 2020
EarthLab announces Innovation Grant recipients for 2020
Research projects funded for 2020 by EarthLab’s Innovation Grants Program will study how vegetation might reduce pollution, help an Alaskan village achieve safety and resilience amid climate change, organize a California river’s restoration with tribal involvement, compare practices in self-managed indigenous immigrant communities and more. EarthLab is a University of Washington-wide institute connecting scholars with community…
Course | HSTAS 541
Economic and Social History of Japan to 1900
Analyses of landholding systems, the rise of commerce, demographic changes, urbanization, early industrialization, and social change.Course | GEOG 207
Economic Geography
The changing locations and spatial patterns of economic activity, including: production in agriculture, manufacturing, and services; spatial economic principles of trade, transportation, communications, and corporate organization; regional economic development, and the diffusion of technological innovation.Course | ESRM 431 / ENVIR 431 / PSYCH 431
Ecopsychology
Explores psychology of the human relationship with nature. Critically examines how ecopsychology can impact urban sustainability, human health, environmental education, and the design of new technologies. Specific topics include evolutionary psychology; human-animal interaction; biophillia; children and nature; indigenous cultures; and ecotherapy.Scholar
Elena A. Erosheva
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Eliot Brenowitz
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ENGL 327
English Literature: Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century
Examines the impact of historical changes including urban growth and imperial expansion on print culture through selections of poetry, prose, and drama from authors such as Aphra Behn, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Jonathan Swift.Course | ENGL 335
English Literature: The Age of Victoria
Examines literary works from Victorian Britain and its empire (1837-1901), paired with contemporary social, scientific, and historical developments such as industrialization; urbanization; child labor; imperial expansion; scientific ideas of evolution and geologic time; changing ideas of gender/sexuality; mass education and mass literacy; and the popularization of print media.Course | ENVIR 221, HSTAA 221
Environmental History of the U.S.
Surveys the relationship between nature and human history, including the impact of the non-human environment on American history and the environmental effects of colonization, urbanization, and consumerism; the cultural construction of nature in different eras and its social implications; the sources and limits of modern environmental politics.Course | AES 211 / ANTH 211 / ENVIR 211
Environmental Justice
Examines introductory studies of environmental racism and ecological injustice in the United States and select areas of the world. Reviews environmental justice theories and methods applied to risk science, ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. Includes comparative studies of social movements for "eco-justice."Course | POL S 383
Environmental Politics and Policy in the United States
Interrelation between technological and environmental change and policy formation. Consideration of political behavior related to these phenomena and the capacity of urban public organizations to predict change and to formulate policies that can take future states into account.Scholar
Eric W. Johnson
Visit scholar websiteCourse | AES 361 / SOC 363
Ethnicity, Business, Unions, and Society
Interrelationships of ethnicity, business, unions, and the larger society. Examines financial and sociological structure of business and manufacturing sector, how this sector performs, and consequences of performance for selected ethnic groups in United States.News | May 24, 2019
Event looks at past efforts to integrate schools in Seattle and what can be done now
May 17 was the 65th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that said segregating public schools by race was unconstitutional. Many public schools in Seattle remain segregated in spite of past efforts to address that, including several decades of busing. A national nonprofit group, Integrated Schools, hosted an event on Thursday,…
Course | ANTH 101
Exploring Sociocultural Anthropology
Introduces perspectives from sociocultural anthropology on the diversity and the dynamics of collective human life. Examines how individual lives are shaped by broader social and cultural contexts, how people make meaning, and how power relations work. Introduces ethnography as a method for documenting and understanding social and cultural life.News | October 29, 2019
Facebook commits $1 billion to ease Bay Area housing crisis
Facebook Inc. is following other tech titans like Microsoft Corp. and Google, pledging to use its deep pockets to ease the affordable housing shortage in West Coast cities. The social media giant said Tuesday that it would commit $1 billion over the next decade to address the crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area, building as many as…
Course | ART H 211 / JSIS A 211
Fashion Systems: Europe-Asia
Introduces the historical development of fashion systems in early modern and modern Europe and Asia. Explores topics including: Fashioning the Body; Gender and Fashion; Fashion as Conspicuous Consumption; Fashion as Urban Spectacle; the Politics of Fashion.Course | GEOG 490
Field Research: The Seattle Region
Field methods for contemporary urban research. Survey designs used in the analysis of transportation, land use, location of employment, shopping and housing, political fragmentation, and environmental degradation. Field report required, based on field work in the Seattle region.News | October 5, 2016
First Livable City Year projects underway; kickoff event Oct. 6
Not even a week has passed since the start of the quarter, and already a group of University of Washington public health students is deep into discovering the cultural flavor and identity of each neighborhood in a nearby city. The project is a sizeable challenge: Students will pour over census and public health data, interview…
Course | GEOG 373 / JEW ST 362 / SPAN 362
Food and Community: Cultural Practices in the Hispanic World
Intersections of food and community in Hispanic cultures. Past and present practices. Food and material culture, urban design, foodways and gender roles, food and race, diet and hygiene, religious, and civic celebrations, and food preparation techniques.Course | CHSTU 320
Food Sovereignty Movements in Mexico and the United States
Interdisciplinary study of agrifood systems and food sovereignty movements in Mexico and Mexican-origin communities in the United States. Uses the methods and materials of ethnography, agroecology, and political ecology in concert with environmental history, rural sociology, deconstructive discourse analysis, eco-criticism, and predictive ecology.News | June 13, 2018
Forest loss in one part of US can harm trees on the opposite coast
Large swaths of U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought, forest fires and disease. Many local impacts of forest loss are well known: drier soils, stronger winds, increased erosion, loss of shade and habitat. But if a whole forest disappears, new research shows, this has ricocheting effects in the atmosphere that can affect vegetation on the…
Scholar
Frances McCue
Visit scholar websiteNews | November 7, 2017
Frances McCue meditates on changing city in new poem collection ‘Timber Curtain’
“This is Seattle. A place to love whatever’s left,” writes UW faculty member Frances McCue in her new book of poetry, “Timber Curtain.” “(W)here new things are coming, shinier than the last / I’m the bust standing in the boom / the poet in the technology world / spread along the timber bottom” — from…
Scholar
Gary Handwerk
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ARCH 466, GWSS 466
Gender and Architecture
Examines gender in the experience, practice, and theory of architecture and urban space with a focus on modern typologies: skyscraper, home, convent, bachelor pad, street, and closet. Draws from architectural and art history, social studies, design practice and theory, comparative literature, film studies, and queer theory.Course | GWSS 333 / JSIS B 333
Gender and Globalization: Theory and Process
Theoretical, historical, and empirical analysis of how current processes of globalization are transforming the actual conditions of women's lives, labor, gender ideologies, and politics in complex and contradictory ways. Topics include feminist exploration of colonialism, capitalism, economic restructuring policies, resistance in consumer and environmental movements.Course | AES 322 / GWSS 300
Gender, Race, and Class in Social Stratification
The intersection of race, class, and gender in the lives of women of color in the United States from historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics include racism, classism, sexism, activism, sexuality, and inter-racial dynamics between women of color groups.Course | GEOG 439
Gender, Race, and the Geography of Employment
Focuses on the geography of employment for men and women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in American cities. Presents evidence on labor market inequality for different groups and explanations of these differences. Emphasizes the importance of a spatial perspective in understanding employment outcomes for women and minorities.Course | GEOG 245
Geodemographics: Population, Diversity, and Place
Explores the geodemographic underpinnings of societal dynamics and the spatial diversity of United States populations. Topics include immigration policy, the concept of 'race' in the census, fertility and mortality differences, political redistricting, segregation, and internal migration of populations. Examines regional and local scales of variation using geodemographic techniques and GIS.Degree Program
Geographic Information Systems (Cert)
Explore how geographic information systems have enhanced the efficiency and analytical power of traditional cartography. Examine the range of information sources that can be combined to build a GIS database – including raw data, scanned maps, GPS positions and aerial photography. Learn how to use the system to support research and decision making in a…
Visit program websiteCourse | GEOG 432
Geographies and Politics of Poverty and Privilege
Examines theories and case studies across the Americas to understand geographies and politics of poverty and inequality. Outlines key concepts related to the reproduction of inequality/poverty, particularly theories of class, gender, and race and examines the mechanisms through which knowledge and action on poverty and inequality are (re)produced.Course | GEOG 272
Geographies of Environmental Justice
Draws on political ecology and cultural geography frameworks to think through social constructions of nature: where we live, where we play, and where we work. Looks at the role of markers of difference (gender, race, nationality) in debates around equity and justice.Course | GEOG 230
Geographies of Global Inequality
Addresses increasing global inequalities by focusing on shifting spatial division of labor and the role of the international development industry in shaping economic and social inequality. Examines relationships between economic globalization, development industry, and rising global inequality: reviews the history and record of the international development project, and asks what it means to say that Western, advanced economies are not the norm.Course | GEOG 270
Geographies of International Development and Environmental Change
Explores how concepts, theories and ideologies of international development and environmental issues interrelate. Approaches development and environment through several interconnected topics: population, consumption, carbon, land and water. Examines how these issues connect our lives to the lives of people living in the Third World.Degree Program
Geography (BA, minor, MA, PhD)
Geographers address some of the world’s most urgent challenges, including globalization, economic inequality, world hunger and agricultural development, global health and health care, the social control of public spaces, immigration, gender inequality, and what it means to be a citizen in the 21st century. Answers to such questions are complex and partial, and these issues…
Visit program websiteCourse | GEOG 277
Geography of Cities
Explores economic, cultural, social and political dynamics of cities - their location, functions, and internal structure, including economic activities, housing, and social geography. Topics include economic restructuring; suburbanization and urban sprawl; urban planning; inner-city gentrification; and how issues of class, race, and gender are embedded in the geographies of cities.Course | GEOG 271
Geography of Food and Eating
Examines development of world food economy, current responses to instabilities and crises, and issues relating to obesity, hunger, and inequality in relation to food systems. Explores political, social, and economic dimensions of food and eating in particular spaces, places, environments, contexts, and regions. Uses the theme of food and eating to examine key concepts from human geography and thereby provides an introduction to the discipline.Course | GEOG 445
Geography of Housing
Focuses on the geography of housing, especially in the United States. Topics include: the American dream of home ownership; housing affordability and differential access to home ownership; homelessness; the history of public housing; housing demography; residential mobility and neighborhood change, and discrimination in the housing market.Course | GEOG 342
Geography of Inequality
Geographies of social, political, and economic inequality. Focus is usually on North American cities. Examines the theoretical underpinning of inequality. Explores topics such as the spatial distribution of wealth and poverty, the geographies of exclusion, and discrimination in paid employment and housing.Course | GEOG 335, JSIS B 335
Geography of the Developing World
Characteristics and causes, external and internal, of Third World development and obstacles to that development. Special attention to demographic and agricultural patterns, resource development, industrialization and urbanization, drawing on specific case studies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.Course | GEOG 208
Geography of the World Economy: Regional Fortunes and the Rise of Global Markets
Examines the relationship between the globalization of economic activity and regional development. Topics include international trade, colonialism, industrial capitalism, advanced capitalism, and the globalization of labor markets.Course | GEOG 448
Geography of Transportation
News | May 17, 2016
Get Out of Jail Now, Now Pay Up: Your Fines are Waiting
When you’re convicted of a crime in America, it’s not just prison time you may face—there are fines, fees, and other cash penalties, too. And when you get out, they’ll be waiting. Plus interest. The plight of “Kathie” symbolizes everything that’s wrong with this system, one that heaps a debt burden onto ex-convicts who don’t…
Course | GEOG 464, 564
GIS and Decision Support
Combines lectures about geographic information systems and decision methods with hands-on computer assignments about regional and urban issues associated with such complex decision processes as planning, improvement programming, and capital project implementation. Emphasizes land, transportation, and water resources decision problems.Course | GEOG 360
GIS and Mapping
Introduction to mapping and geographic information systems. Topics include: Representation of spatial objects, their attributes, and relationships in desktop and online GIS; common spatial operations and geoprocessing in GIS; principles of cartographic visualization, communication, and critique; narrative mapping and spatial humanities; ethics, society and GIS.Course | GEOG 362
GIS Presentation, Analysis, and Problem Solving
Introduces students to the systems, science, and study of geographic information systems (GIS), including what gives GIS its enduring importance, it core principles, its applications, its unique analysis methods, and the practices and dilemmas that often accompany the use and communication of geographic information.Scholar
Hedwig E. Lee
Visit scholar websiteNews | February 12, 2016
Heterogeneity and American Ghettos with Dr. Mario Luis Small – 2/25
February 25th / 6:00-7:30pm / CMU 120 Dr. Mario Luis Small Grafstein Family Professor, Harvard University By the end of the 20th century, the dominant theories of urban poverty argued that U.S. ghettos had become isolated areas devoid of everyday institutions and disconnected from mainstream society. Dr. Small examines whether the conventional models have underestimated…
News | December 21, 2020
Hidden in plain sight: The ghosts of segregation
Originally written by Richard Frishman for the New York Times‘ series World Through a Lens. The six faded letters are all that remain, and few people notice them. I would never have seen them if a friend hadn’t pointed them out to me while we walked through New Orleans’s French Quarter. I certainly wouldn’t have…
Course | AFRAM 321 / GWSS 321
History of African American Women and the Feminist Movement
"Feminist Movement" from early nineteenth century to present. Treats relationship between black and white women in their struggle for independence, at times together and at times apart. Discusses the reasons, process, and results of collaboration as well as opposition. Examines recent and contemporary attempts at cooperation.Course | HSTLAC 282
History of Mexico: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Rule from the Aztecs to the Present
Overview of Mexican history from late Aztec times until the twenty-first century. Emphasizes how women, campesinos, indigenous populations, free and enslaved Afro-Mexicans, and the urban poor experienced the past, challenged colonial and post-colonial rule, and shaped modern Mexican society and culture.Course | HSTAS 235 / JSIS A 235
History of Modern Taiwan
Social, cultural, political, and economic history of modern Taiwan from approximately 1600 to the present. Places Taiwan within global historical changes and explores Taiwan-centric issues in depth. Covers migration, colonialism, race and identity, urban and rural development, the Cold War, capitalism and industrialization, science, religion, labor, and gender.Course | AFRAM 272
History of the South Since the Civil War
Reconstruction and its aftermath, the Agrarian (Populist) revolt, disfranchisement and segregation, the effects of urbanization and subsequent depression, desegregation, and the struggle for civil rights. Examines the New South, the conflict of ideology with structural and material change, and the place of the South in contemporary America.News | February 1, 2024
History uncovered: UW research finds thousands of past racial restrictions in Kitsap
Reported in The Kitsap Sun By Peiyu Lin It’s not a secret that Kitsap County possesses a history of segregation, where some areas of the peninsula were only allowed to sell or rent to white people in the early and mid-20th century. But a specific geographic distribution of the over 2,300 properties that carry racial…
News | December 9, 2021
Home, not-so-sweet home
Imagine buying your dream home — and then learning you are prohibited from owning it. A surprising number of residential property deeds in Washington state contain clauses excluding certain groups from ownership. Those clauses are no longer enforceable thanks to a 1968 anti-discrimination law, but the exclusionary language — a reminder of sanctioned racism in…
News | September 28, 2021
Homeless in Silicon Valley’s shadow get help, but ‘sustainable’ change is elusive
Andrea Urton, who grew up homeless in Los Angeles, has seen how little corporate interests tend to care about helping the impoverished. So it was with some surprise when she received a phone call from an Apple representative. “I have never had an Apple or a Google or a Facebook reach out to me personally…
News | June 6, 2019
Homelessness drops 8% in Seattle but more live in tents
The number of homeless in Seattle dropped nearly 8% over the last two years reflecting an across the board drop in nearly all categories. But there was an increase in the number of people living unsheltered in tents and encampments and that’s where Seattle’s Navigation Team focuses on. Mayor Durkan announced on Friday an expansion…
News | December 7, 2022
Homelessness Research Initiative convenes homelessness scholars from across the UW
Last Tuesday, faculty, staff, and students from across the University of Washington met in the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health for a convening of the Homelessness Research Initiative. Led by faculty co-chairs Rachel Fyall, associate professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, and Gregg Colburn, assistant professor in the College of…
News | March 8, 2017
Honoring Women Collaborators at Urban@UW
In honor of International Women’s Day, we are highlighting just some of UW’s brilliant female professors, scholars, and and change-makers with whom Urban@UW is proud to collaborate. Click on their names to explore their work. Leadership: Thaisa Way, Executive Director, Urban@UW; Department of Landscape Architecture Executive Committee: Margaret O’Mara, Department of History Susan P….
News | May 10, 2022
How Bellevue’s tech hub is similar to Silicon Valley — and what they can learn from each other
Comparing Silicon Valley and Seattle has become something of a regional pastime in the Pacific Northwest. But the comparison might be more accurate if directed a few miles east, across the shores of Lake Washington to where Bellevue skyrises are multiplying. Because historically speaking, the rise of the eastside closely mirrors the trajectory of Silicon…
News | April 7, 2022
How happy are Seattle, and WA as a whole, compared to other cities and states?
By some accounts, Seattle is among the most stressed and sleep-deprived metros in the nation, but let’s forget about that for a moment. New reports find Seattle, and Washington as a whole, rate high on the happiness scale. In fact, Seattle is the seventh-happiest city in the nation, according to WalletHub’s 2022’s Happiest Cities in America report. The personal finance website…
News | July 7, 2022
How many homeless people are in King County? Depends who you ask
Since the data-driven Marc Dones was hired to lead the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, one of their main priorities has been to get an accurate count of the homeless population. Now, Dones and the Authority have two different counts: 13,368 and 40,800. Both are larger than the previous estimate of the homeless population conducted…
News | June 11, 2020
How Seattle’s unemployed survived the Great Depression
When the stock market crashed in fall of 1929, the road from joblessness to homelessness was short. Meager local relief programs and private charity weren’t up to the challenge of mass unemployment. As the Depression deepened and President Herbert Hoover resolutely opposed federal involvement in relief efforts, “Hoovervilles” sprang up around the country. Seattle’s largest shanty…
News | February 15, 2019
How Seattle’s 1919 General Strike Ignited America’s Labor Movement
On February 6, 1919, 65,000 union workers in Seattle walked off the job. On that Wednesday morning, barbers, newsboys, ice wagon drivers, stereotypers, electrical utility workers, and bill posters didn’t show up for work, a demonstration of solidarity with shipyard workers who had already been striking for two weeks in pursuit of higher wages. The…
News | March 15, 2018
How social networks help perpetuate the ‘cycle of segregation’
Think about the last time you looked for a new apartment or house. Maybe you asked your friends or colleagues about where they lived. You thought about your route to work, or that neighborhood you always drive through on your way to your kid’s soccer practice. Many of these places were familiar to you, whether…
News | October 18, 2024
How to avoid sharing election misinformation
Reported by Audrey Nguyen for NPR The 2024 election season is upon us. While Election Day is November 5, early voting started in September in some states. As we wait for the final results to be declared, chances are, you’re going to come across false or misleading information. To avoid spreading misinformation this election season,…
News | August 1, 2019
How to consider nature’s impact on mental health in city plans
Almost one in five adults in the U.S. lives with a mental illness. That statistic is similar worldwide, with an estimated 450 million people currently dealing with a mental or neurological disorder. Of those, only about a third seek treatment. Interacting with nature is starting to be recognized as one way to improve mental health. A number of scientific…
Course | GEOG 310
Immigrant America: Trends and Policies from a Geographic Perspective
U.S. immigration trends and policies from a geographic perspective. Topics include where immigrants come from, where they settle in the United States (and why they settle in those particular places), these locations, immigrant employment enclaves, effects of U.S. immigration policy on immigrant settlement and employment patterns, unauthorized immigration, citizenship, and barriers to immigrant social and economic mobility in the United States.Course | LSJ 422
Immigrants, Labor, and Legality
Provides sociological examination of working immigrants in the United States. Focuses on how immigration and labor legislation shape context of working, worker identity, and rights. Topics include federal and state legislation, employee classification, division of labor, skilled/unskilled, flexibility, legal status, organizing, and relationship to race and gender ideology in shaping contexts of working and rights.Course | JSIS B 380
Immigration and Cultural Memory in the Pacific Northwest: The Role of Film and Cinema
Explores immigration and culture through the development of the film industry in relation to the immigrant flows into Seattle at the turn of the 20th century. The rise of cinema helped immigrants to assimilate into mainstream society. In turn, immigrants turned films into a major American industry.News | December 5, 2019
Impact of WTO protests in Seattle still felt 2 decades later
An array of issues brought tens of thousands of protesters to Seattle 20 years ago Saturday, with one unifying theme: concern that the World Trade Organization, a then-little-known body charged with regulating international trade, threatened them all. With their message amplified not just by their numbers, but by the response of overwhelmed police who fired…
News | April 2, 2021
In the face of hate, Asian Americans call for solidarity with all people of color
Since the beginning of the year, Asian Americans have come increasingly under violent attack. Elders have been assaulted in Chinatowns across the country from Oakland to San Francisco to New York City. In late February, Inglemoor High School Japanese teacher Noriko Nasu and her boyfriend were walking through Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (C-ID) and were attacked…
News | September 9, 2024
In Washington’s closest elections, volunteers go door-to-door to ‘rehab’ faulty ballots
Reported by Scott Greenstone for KUOW/NPR On a mid-August afternoon in Seattle, Lisa McCrummen walked around Phinney Ridge knocking on doors — but her neighbors were not home. “‘Your neighbor stopped by to make sure your primary election ballot is being counted,’” McCrummen wrote on a note. McCrummen left notes like this all afternoon at…
Course | AES 150
In-Justice for All: Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in the United States
Focusing on pre-Columbus era to 1970, students develop an understanding of how race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and gender impact all Americans - especially those viewed as racial ethnic minorities.Course | AIS 425 / HSTAA 417
Indians in Western Washington History
Relations of Indians and non-Indians in the Puget Sound region, from the 1790s to the present, with emphasis on evolving ideas about Indian identity.Course | AIS 385
Indigenous Ecologies and Climate Change
Diverse ways in which Indigenous peoples around the world understand, experience, and are responding to contemporary global climate change. Topics include: the politics of traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous environmental justice movements, community-scale climate "adaptation" practice, as each is related to Indigenous health and wellbeing, cultural continuance, and political sovereignty.Course | CHID 280 / JSIS A 280
Indigenous Encounters: Politics, Culture, and Representation in Latin America
Explores the contemporary cultural and political transformations advanced by indigenous groups and their advocates in Latin America. Examines the concept of indigeneity, the cultural politics of indigenous mobilization, and the effects of international development policies on indigenous communities.Course | AIS 380
Indigenous Food Sovereignty
Food sovereignty within an Indigenous framework of decolonization and cultural revitalization. Demonstrates its potential to strengthen tribal autonomy, health, and wellness in Indigenous communities. How colonialism undermined Indigenous relationships to homelands, plants, and animals that sustained and nourished communities, leading to health disparities and inability to access traditional, nutritious foods.Course | CHSTU 322 / ANTH 325
Indigenous Knowledge and Public Health in Mexican and Latinx Origin Communities
Critical medical anthropologies of public health through environmental justice/decolonial methods and groundings in ethnoscientific knowledge. Forces impinging on 'racialized' health regimes in Mexican/Latinx communities through study of structural violence, historical trauma and related disparities and inequities. Emphasis on healthcare and caring labor via decolonial critiques of settler colonialism, commodification, and indigenous survivance.Course | ANTH 325 / CHSTU 322
Indigenous Knowledge and Public Health in Mexican and Latinx Origin Communities
Critical medical anthropologies of public health through environmental justice/decolonial methods and groundings in ethnoscientific knowledge. Forces impinging on 'racialized' health regimes in Mexican/Latinx communities through study of structural violence, historical trauma and related disparities and inequities. Emphasis on healthcare and caring labor via decolonial critiques of settler colonialism, commodification, and indigenous survivance.Course | AIS 492
Indigenous Sovereignties
Indigenous challenges of ongoing European settlement across the globe, focusing on both the global legacies of colonialism and the continued socio-political movements of Indigenous populations. What colonialism looks like today and how Indigenous peoples are challenging its authority.Course | GEOG 435
Industrialization and Urbanization in China
Examines the impacts of industrialization strategies adopted by the Peoples Republic of China on urbanization and rural-urban relations. Topics include: economic development strategies, industrial geography, rural industrialization, urban development patterns, migration, and urbanization policies.Course | SOC 565 / CS&SS 565
Inequality: Current Trends and Explanations
Discussion of recent growth in economic inequality in the United States and competing explanations for these new trends through examination of labor market demographics, industrial composition and restructuring, and the broader political context that impacts policies like minimum wage, strength of unions, and foreign trade.Degree Program
International Studies (BA, minor, MA, MA in Applied International Studies, PhD)
The International Studies Program combines social sciences and humanities to examine international problems and change. Using a diverse, multidisciplinary approach, the Program encourages students to look at our increasingly interdependent world in order to learn how to study it and understand its politics, societies, economies, and cultures.
Visit program websiteCourse | AIS 202
Introduction to American Indian Contemporary and Social Issues
Introduction to American Indian/Alaska Natives contemporary and social issues. Topics will include identification, demographics, government relations, treaty and water rights, Indian gaming, and treaty law.Course | GEOG 123 / JSIS 123
Introduction to Globalization
Provides an introduction to the debates over globalization. Focuses on the growth and intensification of global ties. Addresses the resulting inequalities and tensions, as well as the new opportunities for cultural and political exchange. Topics include the impacts on government, finance, labor, culture, the environment, health, and activism.Course | HSTCMP 249 / POL S 249 / SOC 266
Introduction to Labor Studies
Conceptual and theoretical issues in the study of labor and work. Role of labor in national and international politics. Formation of labor movements. Historical and contemporary role of labor in the modern world.Course | GEOG 203
Introduction to Migration
Introduces contemporary issues in international migration. Covers the relationship between contemporary human mobility and changes in the global economy; gendered migration; transnationalism; refugee and asylum issues; and immigrant integration.Course | SOC 360
Introduction to Social Stratification
Social class and social inequality in American society. Status, power, authority, and unequal opportunity are examined in depth, using material from other societies to provide a comparative and historical perspective. Sociological origins of recurrent conflicts involving race, sex, poverty, and political ideology.Course | SOC 215
Introduction to Urban Sociology
Introduces the field of urban sociology. Focuses primarily on urban dynamics in the United States with attention to the global context in which they operate.News | June 7, 2019
It’s going to get harder to evict people in WA. Will that reduce homelessness?
As the number of homeless residents soars in King County and across the state, housing and homelessness advocates have turned their attention to eviction reform as a piece of the solution. One prominent study, from the Seattle Women’s Commission, found that the vast majority of people evicted end up on the street, in shelters or…
Course | ART H 261 / ITAL 261
Italian Cities
Introduces Italian culture by focusing on the past and present of five of the nation's most important cities: Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, and Naples.Course | ART H 495 / ITAL 475
Italian Fascism: Architecture and Power
Fascism in Italy as studied within the broader European context of nationalism, imperialism, and modernization, with particular emphasis on the arts -- literature, film, architecture, and urbanism.Scholar
James Gregory
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James Tweedie
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Japanese Americans: Race, Culture, Discrimination, Gender, and Endurance
Explores the changing nature of Japanese Americans from the first, Issei, to the latest generation. Topics include arrival, inequality and discrimination, Picture Brides, WW II, and minority-majority race relations. Lectures, readings, discussion, and videos offer varied approaches to view culture, values, community, concentration camps, gender, socio-economic, and psychological issue.Course | HSTAS 440/540, JSIS A 440/539
Japanese History in Ecological Perspective
Survey of Japanese history in ecological perspective, from early times to the present. Topics include ancient Japanese lifeways; climate and history; agriculture, population, and resources; Buddhist and animist views of outer and inner nature; urbanization from ancient capitals to megacity Tokyo; industrialization and energy; and future visions. Readings include influential scholarly works and Japanese sources in English translation.Scholar
Jasmine Mahmoud
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Jeff Riffell
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Jelani Ince
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Jennifer Dee
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Join Urban@UW in creating innovative solutions for city dwellers, today and into the future.
Support Urban@UW Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders to develop cross-disciplinary…
Scholar
Jonathan Mayer
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Jonathan Warren
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Josephine Ensign
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Judith A. Howard
Visit scholar websiteNews | February 22, 2017
Julian Agyeman: A Brief Reading List
Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University, will be delivering a talk at the University of Washington on February 28 at 7:30pm. Agyeman was originally trained as an ecologist and biogeographer before turning to critical urban studies and environmental social science. Agyeman’s scholarship challenges basic notions of sustainability through…
Scholar
Justin Hamacher
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Justin Jesty
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Kam Wing Chan
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Katharyne Mitchell
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Katherine Beckett
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Keith Harris
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Kemi Adeyemi
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Ken Tadashi Oshima
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Kessie Alexandre
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Kim England
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Kyle Crowder
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Kyle Crowder examines renter/landlord perspective on seattle rental ordinances
In a recent interview with KOMO Radio, CSDE Affiliate and Professor of Sociology Kyle Crowder explains the results of a recent study of Seattle’s rental housing market. In that research, Crowder finds that neither renters nor landlords strongly support the city’s rental ordinances, noting: “Renters were often skeptical that the ordinances would have much effectiveness because the general perception is that landlords…
Course | ANTH 373
Labor, Identity, and Knowledge in Healthcare
Presents anthropological perspectives on provision of healthcare as a complex social phenomena. Examines division of labor, and how social groups come to occupy particular positions. Considers how knowledge and skills are gained, how they are recognized and valued, and may become sources of identity.Scholar
LaShawnDa Pittman
Visit scholar websiteCourse | GEOG 330
Latin America: Landscapes of Change
Examines operation of economic, social, and political processes across countries of Latin America - on international, national, and local scales - to understand common issues facing the region and different impacts in particular countries. Topics include internationalization of Latin American economies; agrarian and urban change; popular movements.Course | CHSTU 435
Latinas and Labor in the Neoliberal Age
Social, political, and economic forces shaping the lives of Latina workers under neoliberalism.Course | CHSTU 200
Latinos in the United States: Patterns of Racial, Ethnic, and Socio-Economic and Political Inequality
Studies broad patterns of inequality formed by historical forces, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, immigration, and social capital. Analyzes rapid growth and adjustment of old and newly established Latino communities, resulting from transnational migration from Latin America.Course | CHSTU 200
Latinos in the United States: Patterns of Racial, Ethnic, and Socio-Economic and Political Inequality
Studies broad patterns of inequality formed by historical forces, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, immigration, and social capital. Analyzes rapid growth and adjustment of old and newly established Latino communities, resulting from transnational migration from Latin America.Course | ANTH 533
Law, Liberalism, and Modernity
Examines relationships between law, culture, and power through post-structuralist theories that consider subjectivity, agency, and identity. Explores connections between modern liberal law and the body, possessive individualisms, and discourses of rights. Topics include rights-talk, globalization, biopolitics, subject-making, modern nation-states, the rule of law, neo-liberalism, and legal cultures.Center & Lab
Law, Societies and Justice
LSJ courses analyze the meaning of justice, the methods used in efforts to realize it, the politics of rights, and the complex roles that law and legal institutions play in structuring social life. Many courses analyze these issues in comparative perspective. Coursework emphasizes close reading of key texts, active classroom engagement with complex ideas, and…
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Law, Societies and Justice (BA, minor)
The Law, Societies and Justice Department offers students an opportunity to understand the complex roles of law in society. Law takes multiple forms and performs a wide array of important functions. At the same time, the work of law is shaped by numerous political, economic, social, cultural and geographic factors. Because of this, law “on…
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Lillian J. Ratliff
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LInda Nash
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Literature and Discourse on the Environment
Pays attention to verbal expression; forms and genres; and historical, cultural, and conceptual contexts of the natural environment. Focuses on sites, nations, and historical periods. Forms and genres include: nature writing, environmentalist discourses, the pastoral, the sublime, discourses of the city, fiction, poetry, nonfiction prose, dramatic forms, and religious texts.News | October 1, 2024
Loneliness in Washington tops national average
Reported by Christine Clarridge and Alex Fitzpatrick for Axios. More than 43% of Washingtonians reported feeling lonely at least sometimes, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Why it matters: Loneliness isn’t just a feeling; it’s associated with serious mental and physical health impacts, including elevated likelihood of developing diabetes, cardiac risk,…
News | July 3, 2016
Looking ahead to July, Recapping June
Looking forward into July – Unlikely Allies is coming to Seattle right after July 4th weekend. Impact Hub Seattle is hosting the Unlikely Allies: Future of Cities Festival in partnership with the Impact Hub Company – the organization that coordinates the network’s 89 locations worldwide. More than 200 delegates from 70 cities will be joining…
News | March 13, 2024
Looking inward for pollution In his latest research, Dr. Dan Jaffe looks to the kitchen as a source for indoor pollution in the home.
Excerpted from the University of Washington- Bothell website. For more than 30 years, Dr. Dan Jaffe has spent his career researching outdoor air pollution and its many sources — from wildfires to fossil fuels. In recent years, however, his curiosity has shifted inward as he looks to answer the question: “How clean is our indoor…
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Lucy Jarosz
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Madeleine Yue Dong
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Manish Chalana
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Many homeless people take better care of their pets than themselves; this clinic helps them
Homeless people with pets are usually criticized and sometimes turned away from shelters. But that’s starting to change. His name is Bud the Amazing Wonder Dog, but the huge German shepherd-rottweiler mix was not feeling amazing or wonderful during his clinic visit, as he whimpered and tried to steady himself on an examination table too…
News | January 30, 2020
Many Seattleites are now Voluntarily Paying Rent to the Duwamish
To help right the wrongs of history, thousands of people are paying rent each month to the Duwamish Tribe. Called “Real Rent Duwamish,” the all-volunteer effort — in partnership with the tribe — facilitates monthly “rent” payments to the tribe. Launched in 2017, Real Rent Duwamish has had 4,524 donors so far, now totaling around $20,000…
News | January 28, 2020
Mapping Eviction in Western Washington
Evictions due to lack of affordable housing and rising rent costs contribute to the homelessness crisis. A new interactive map by graduate student Alex Ramiller with the UW Department of Geography builds on the study released in 2018 that measured and analyzed the issue of evictions in western Washington using court records, census data and housing market trends. Between…
News | January 9, 2020
Mapping the segregation of Minneapolis
Before it was torn apart by freeway construction in the middle of the 20th century, the Near North neighborhood in Minneapolis was home to the city’s largest concentration of African American families. That wasn’t by accident: As far back as the early 1900s, racially restrictive covenants on property deeds prevented African Americans and other minorities…
Course | GEOG 258
Maps and GIS
Explores how people represent the world with maps and geographic information systems (GIS). Trains students in map use for basic navigation, urban management, and environmental analysis. Considers role of spatial databases in commerce, decision-making, and analysis. Helps map readers better determine quality, usefulness, and representation of information.Scholar
Margaret O’Mara
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Mark Ellis
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Mary D. Fan
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Mary Larimer
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May HQ2 be ever in your favor: Amazon’s new short list pits 20 cities against each other
Amazon’s decision to establish a second and equal corporate headquarters outside of Seattle made the company an object of desire and scorn simultaneously, as cities were suddenly pitted against one another for the $5 billion prize. And while the 20 candidates that made Amazon’s HQ2 short list last Thursday are likely celebrating, the decision to…
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Megan Ming Francis
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Megan Ybarra
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Meredith Clausen
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Michael Brown
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Migration and Development in China
Examines patterns of China's internal migration in different periods in relation to economic development. Explores how the state-created dual structure and the household registration system enables China to have a huge class of super-exploitable migrant labor and become the world's premier low-end manufacturing center.Scholar
Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ART H 314
Modern and Contemporary Art in India
Surveys the visual arts of India from the late colonial through the postcolonial period. Topics include impact of colonialism, anti-colonial nationalist claims for art, shifting status of oil paintings, emergence of a national style, new art movements in urban centers, and art in the service of forge postcolonial identities and alliances.Course | ANTH 448, JSIS A 448
Modern Korean Society
Social organization and values of twentieth-century Korea. Changes in family and kinship, gender relations, rural society, urban life, education, and industrial organization since 1900. Differences between North and South Korea since 1945.Course | HSTAFM 463
Modern Persian Gulf
Introduction to the histories of Arabian Peninsula states, Iraq, Iran, and their linkages since the eighteenth century. Topics to be covered include imperialism and its legacies, political economy of oil, governmental structures and political transitions, identify formation, political ideologies, urbanization, and relations with the broader Middle East and Indian Ocean.Course | ENGL 338
Modern Poetry
Covers poetry from the 1890s through the 1940s, focusing on modernism and the avant-garde. This period, with the birth of free verse, is one of formal and social tumult. Likely topics include Imagism and Dada; the Harlem Renaissance; World War I and the Great Depression; urbanization; and the New Woman. Authors may include Eliot, H.D., Hughes, Loy, Moore, Pound, Stein, Stevens, Williams, and Yeats.Course | ANTH 316, JSIS A 316
Modern South Asia
Twentieth-century history and society of Indian subcontinent. Topics include nationalism, rural and urban life, popular culture, gender, and environmental politics.News | January 31, 2016
Monthly Wrap up January 2016
It’s been a great start to 2016. UW Alumni association and History Department put together a woderful history lecture series: Excavating Seattle’s histories: Peoples, politics, and place check out details and videos here> The CBE also hosted a number of great speakers and events including SUSTAINING JAPAN: 3.11 FIVE YEARS ON lecture and panel discussion…
News | May 25, 2020
More remote work could send techies out of tech hubs… to a point
About a fifth of companies in the San Francisco Bay Area are following Twitter’s lead and planning to keep their workforces at home even after stay-at-home orders are lifted, according to a Bay Area Council survey of CEOs. The tech industry’s embrace of remote work during the pandemic raises a question: If everyone is working from home,…
News | March 29, 2024
Muslims observing Ramadan at Tacoma ICE center aren’t receiving timely meals, immigration advocates say
Originally published by KUOW Written by Diana Opong The month of Ramadan is a time of holy celebration, but some Muslim people held at the privately run Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma say they aren’t being given clean clothes daily, nor timely meals before and after fasting. Naeem, a 52-year-old man being held at…
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Nancy Beadie
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Nancy Rivenburgh
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National attention, praise for new Silicon Valley history ‘The Code’ by UW historian Margaret O’Mara
Her sweeping new book about the history of Silicon Valley has University of Washington history professor Margaret O’Mara on a busy national book tour this summer. The book, “The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America,” was published this month by Penguin Press and is receiving many positive reviews. “The Code” takes the reader from the…
Course | AIS 365
Native Nation Governance
Current issues important to Native nations today, using films and interactive case studies. Students research topics including: stereotypes, sovereignty, economy, citizenship, art, and politics. Provides an understanding of settler colonialism, seeks to understand challenges facing Native nations and look for creative solutions to those challenges.News | August 25, 2016
NEH Awards $179,000 for Urban-Nature Summer Institute at UW
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded nearly $180,000 for a new summer institute on the urban environment at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. The institute, City/Nature: Urban Environmental Humanities, examines how Western cultures have historically viewed city and nature as separate—and how a more integrative understanding can…
News | March 15, 2024
Neighborhood Poverty May Impact Women’s Ovarian Reserves
Reported by Lori Solomon at Health Day News FRIDAY, March 15, 2024 — Living in a neighborhood with greater poverty in adulthood is tied to lower ovarian reserve, according to a study published online March 5 in Menopause. Anwesha Pan, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues aimed to examine the association between…
News | October 22, 2021
New dean, new perspectives
“I’m an optimist, but also a realist,” says Dianne Harris, who joined the UW College of Arts & Sciences as dean on September 1. Those qualities — and Harris’s dedication to cross-disciplinary work throughout her career — will serve her well as she leads the University’s largest and most academically diverse college. Harris began her…
News | May 18, 2023
New Fee, Loans Aim to Right ‘Historic Wrong’ of Racist Covenants in Washington State
Members of communities once prohibited from buying homes under racist homeowner agreements, will soon get state homebuying assistance. The law signed last week by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee establishes a new $100 processing fee for homebuyers. The funds raised will help some first-time homebuyers cover down payments and closing costs. Tens of thousands of racially…
News | February 1, 2024
New nonpartisan AI nonprofit TrueMedia, led by Oren Etzioni, is making a political deepfake detector
Published in GeekWire By Todd Bishop A new nonprofit, nonpartisan technology organization called TrueMedia is developing an AI-powered tool to detect deepfake videos, photos, and audio, aiming to combat political disinformation in the leadup to the 2024 elections. Founded and led by Oren Etzioni, University of Washington professor and former CEO of the Allen Institute…
News | July 19, 2022
New tsunami warning to those in Seattle: If the earth starts shaking, get to higher ground ASAP
If a really big earthquake hits offshore from Seattle, the city’s shorelines could be struck with massive tsunami waves within a matter of three minutes. In a worst-case scenario, the waves hitting Seattle’s Magnolia Bluff neighborhood could crest at 33 feet high. That’s the grim warning from a report out Thursday from the Washington State…
News | August 11, 2021
New UW collaboratory to support equitable and just climate action
An interdisciplinary group of University of Washington researchers has teamed with Front and Centered to create an innovative Collaboratory to promote just and equitable climate action. The Collaboratory aims to respond to climate change impacts with attention to equitable mitigation and adaptation solutions. It will feature three linked platforms to achieve this goal through a…
News | November 5, 2020
New UW study shows COVID-19 doesn’t spread evenly through Seattle neighborhoods
A new study published by researchers from the University of Washington and UC Irvine examines how COVID-19 spreads in different neighborhoods and it found the virus doesn’t spread evenly through a community. The study, published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, factors in network exposure and demographics to simulate where and how quickly…
News | January 25, 2022
Non-profit sponsors study on how the pandemic impacted arts and culture in Puget Sound
On Jan. 19, the non-profit organization ArtsFund released a COVID Cultural Impact Study, an expansive effort to analyze the pandemic’s impact on Washington’s cultural institutions and their role in the state’s communities which ArtsFund believes is “essential.” Arts and cultural venues were among the first to close when COVID hit in March 2020 and often…
Course | CHSTU 254
Northwest Latino Ethnic Communities: Culture, Race, Class, Immigration, and Socio-Economic and Political Marginalization
Traces the history and development of the Latino community in the Pacific Northwest. The study engages racial and ethnic identities, rural to urban, inter-regional, and trans-border migration, and labor and economy to approach issues of marginalization. The Latino community is also contrasted across rural and urban spaces.News | November 16, 2016
NYC, Chicago mayors join Seattle’s Ed Murray is support of “sanctuary cities” for immigrants
SEATTLE — Democratic mayors of major U.S. cities that have long had cool relationships with federal immigration officials say they’ll do all they can to protect residents from deportation, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to withhold potentially millions of dollars in taxpayer money if they don’t cooperate. New York’s Bill de Blasio, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel…
News | July 14, 2020
On re-centering the poor in poverty politics
A conversation between LaShawnDa Pittman, American Ethnic Studies, and Jayna Milan, UW Marketing graduate, for the Relational Poverty Network. Jayna Milan: What are priority research topics on impoverishment in this moment? LaShawnDa Pittman: The first thing that I thought about when I saw this question was getting poor people access to the political system and…
News | April 7, 2016
One Year On, Seattle Explores Impact Of $15 Minimum Wage Law
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with University of Washington Professor Jacob Vigdor about the state of the minimum wage in Seattle, as California and New York move to lift their minimum wages to $15. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Now, let’s dig deeper into what has happened in Seattle, one of the first big cities to pass that…
News | May 14, 2021
Opinion: The lack of EV charging stations could limit EV growth
Originally written by Nives Dolšak, professor at the University of Washington School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and Aseem Prakash, professor at the University of Washington Department of Political Science. Transportation contributes to about 28% of U.S. carbon emissions. To cut emissions by 50% by 2030, this sector will need to be rapidly decarbonized. Electric Vehicles (EVs) are…
News | November 21, 2022
Over 40,000 households have racist restrictions, UW researchers estimate
State funding approved last year provided $250,000 for researchers at Eastern Washington University and the University of Washington to look for racist or restrictive covenants. The language has not been enforceable since the 1960s, but lead researcher UW Professor James Gregory said doing the work is worthwhile. ”We owe it to our fellow citizens not…
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P. Joshua Griffin
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Pandemic lays bare the everyday stressors, inequities of marginalized communities
On March 14, two weeks after the first U.S. coronavirus death was announced here in King County and as an onslaught of social distancing policies descended on our communities, we began a research study to understand how 500 King County residents were coping with all of it. Every evening, study participants have been generously sharing with us…
Course | ART H 391
Paris Architecture
The architecture of Paris from its pre-Roman origins to the present.Course | ARCH 458, ART H 494, JSIS A 433
Paris: Architecture and Urbanism
Spans the architectural history of Paris, from its Gallic, pre-Roman origins in the second century BCE through the work of twenty-first century architects. Focuses on changing patterns of the physical fabric of the city and its buildings, as seen within the context of the broader political, social, economic, and cultural history.Scholar
Peter Guttorp
Visit scholar websiteNews | January 4, 2021
Poetry vs. programming: Wandering the city, a writer finds the intersection of literature and code
Originally written by Frances McCue, a poet, writer, co-founder of nonprofit community writing center Hugo House, and teaching professor at the University of Washington Department of English, as a special installment of the GeekWire Podcast. I needed to take a break from work and get outside. Also, I’d been reading a lot of Baudelaire so…
Course | GEOG 378 / LSJ 378
Policing the City
Investigates how and why formal and informal order is established in urban areas, how this order produces advantages and disadvantages, and possibilities of alternative visions of order. Topics include formal means of control (zoning, laws, policing, building codes) and informal means of control (gossip, ostracism, peer pressure, local politics).Course | ANTH 437
Political Anthropology and Social Change
Study of politics from different anthropological perspectives, especially processual approaches to political change. Focused examination of cultural aspects of modern state formation in local and regional contexts. Themes: colonialism and nationalism, regime and transitions, local politics and global processes, social construction of bureaucracy.Course | ANTH 444 / JSIS A 403
Politics of Representation in Modern China
Focuses on issues of representation and power in twentieth century China. Combines substantive information on modern Chinese society and culture with recent debates in social theory and the politics of representation. Major themes include Chinese nationalism, body politics, popular culture, and everyday practice.Course | POL S 587
Politics of Urban Reform
Interpretations of urban reformers at turn of this century and during 1960s and 1970s. Historical and political science literature on the subject.Course | ECON 448
Population and Development
International economic development, with a focus on population issues. Demography, poverty and income inequality, fertility choice and sex selection, household production models and intra-household inequality, parental investments in child health and education, including discrimination against girls, and migration and urbanization. Evidence-based policy and differential impacts on diverse communities within developing societies.Course | JSIS D 435 / SOC 432
Population and Modernization
Examines role of demographic factors in the process of social modernization and economic growth. The approach is both historical, focusing on populations of developed countries since 1700, and analytic, stressing the attempts made by different disciplines to model demographic relationships, with attention to less-developed regions.Course | SOC 331
Population and Society
Population growth and distribution, population composition, population theory, urbanization. Determinants and consequences of fertility and mortality trends and migration in economically developed and underdeveloped areas.News | August 24, 2020
Population Health Initiative announces award of 14 COVID-19 population health equity research grants
The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $265,000 in COVID-19 population health equity research grants to 14 different teams of UW faculty researchers and community leaders. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college, departmental, and external funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $378,000. These population health equity…
News | May 5, 2020
Population Health Initiative announces award of 21 COVID-19 rapid response grants
The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $350,000 in COVID-19 rapid response grants to 21 different faculty-led teams. These teams are composed of individuals representing 10 different schools and colleges. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college and departmental funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $820,000. “A…
News | June 22, 2020
Protestors want Seattle de-gentrified – This is how it could happen
For more than a week, protesters against police brutality and racial injustice have occupied a six-block stretch of a Seattle neighborhood and turned it into a festive hub for their demonstrations. They named it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, since renamed the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), after police withdrew from a police…
News | January 5, 2023
Public art in Seattle’s light rail stations has a deeper backstory than you’d think
The stainless-steel blob in an airport. The oversized, poured-concrete nothing in a plaza. The whimsically rendered, locally iconic animals — salmon for Seattle, pelicans for Pensacola — garnishing a park. It’s no secret: Most public art is depressingly perfunctory. Which is to say: If you care about getting it right, public art has to be…
News | June 2, 2016
Q&A: CLPP’s Sam Méndez on Washington’s pot industry and how marijuana is becoming like wine
The Cannabis Law and Policy Project, based in the University of Washington School of Law, was formed by professor Sean O’Connor in fall 2014 to be a center for researching regulatory issues around the state’s new legal cannabis industry. The group recently published its first report for the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB),…
News | May 4, 2016
Quick Recap: A Busy April!
April saw a lot of wonderful developments here at the University of Washington, here’s a quick recap: Our first Office Hours interview with John Vidale (more coming of these soon!) UW researchers continued to explore the effects of a $15/hr minimum wage. PBS premiered their 10 Parks that Changed America program featuring our own Thaisa…
News | May 29, 2016
Quick Recap: Here’s What Happened in May!
May saw a lot of wonderful events, visitors, and research coming out of the University of Washington community. Here’s a quick recap: The CBE PhD Program looked at the future of cities Patricia Romero Lankao visited to talk about the human dimension of climate change Seattle’s “diverse neighborhoods” are actually surprisingly segregated New lighting research…
Scholar
Quintard Taylor
Visit scholar websiteCourse | GEOG 479
Race, Ethnicity, and the American City
Explores America's cities as sites where ethnic and racial interaction have generated specific patterns of opportunity and disadvantage in housing and labor markets; how ethnic identities and racial formations are changed by living and working in cities, and questions of assimilation, multiculturalism, and America's ethno-racial future.Course | AES 380
Race, Ethnicity, and United States Public Policy
Explores the causes of disproportionate representation for people of color among the country's impoverished population; drawing on analysis of race/ethnicity, poverty, public policy, (including competing theories), public policy approaches, and ethnographic work addressing the causes and perpetuation of poverty in America.Scholar
Rachel R. Chapman
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Rachel Vaughn
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Racial justice is an urban issue: A curated list of resources from UW BIPOC scholars
Racial injustice is not a new issue. Segregation and discrimination on the basis of race has long been tied to the built environments across the country, from redlining and restrictive covenants in the mid-1900s, to white flight and suburbanization after World War II, to the current trends of gentrification and displacement in cities throughout the…
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Ralina L. Joseph
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Randy LeVeque
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Raymond Jonas
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Re-Imaging Urban Scholarship: Differencing the Data
Winter Quarter 2016 | HUM 597E | 1 credit, C/NC Instructor:Thaisa Way (Landscape Architecture) Meeting Dates: Friday, January 15, 12-1:20 pm (Startup Hall) Friday, January 29, 12-1:20 pm (Henry Art Gallery) Tuesday, February 2, and Wednesday, February 3 (Participation encouraged as feasible, Center for Urban Horticulture) Thursday, February 4, 9-10:20 am (eScience Institute, Physics/Astronomy Tower)…
Course | CHID 260
Re-Thinking Diversity
Considers the notion of diversity from many scholarly perspectives and from personal engagements. Critically engages historical thinking about diversity and examines contemporary issues such as racism, sexism, and the cultural politics of difference.News | February 19, 2016
Reading List for Dr. Mario Small’s Visit 2/25
In anticipation of next week’s lecture with Harvard’s Dr. Mario Luis Small we thought you might enjoy a few readings to get a feel for what exactly he is all about. No Two Ghettos Are Alike – This short piece by Dr. Small shares it’s name with Thursday’s lecture, and explores some of the complex…
News | April 6, 2016
Reading List for Edgar Pieterse Visit 4/12
In anticipation of Edgar Pieterse’s visit we thought you might enjoy a video lecture and in-depth examination to get a feel for Pieterse’s research and thinking. How can we transcend slum urbanism in Africa? – Edgar Pieterse, University of Cape Town – This short video delivered by Edgar Pieterse and UN-Habitat offers a very accessible…
News | May 7, 2016
Reading List for Patricia Romero Lankao Visit 5/11
In anticipation of Patricia Romero Lankao’s visit we thought you might enjoy these pieces to get a feel for her research and thinking. Water in Mexico City: What Will Climate Change Bring to Its History of Water-Related Hazards and Vulnerabilities?—This research paper delves into the history and evolution of water related risks and crises in…
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Rebecca U. Thorpe
Visit scholar websiteNews | October 19, 2022
Recently completed Spark Grants foster research on mobile home wastewater management, and estimating unhoused populations
Over the past year, two teams of researchers from the University of Washington tackled a host of urban challenges in our region with the support of Urban@UW’s Spark Grants. In September 2021 grants of up to $20,000 were awarded to amplify collaborative research-to-practice with a focus on today’s urban issues. The two UW teams of…
News | August 31, 2021
Red-lining, race, and wealth continue to form borders between Seattle voters
There’s a lot we can glean from Seattle’s voting habits in each election, from how the city has skewed more and more progressive in the leaders it’s elected in recent years, to how conservative interests still remain present despite that fact. During the August mayoral primary, though, the candidates voters chose painted an even broader…
News | July 12, 2023
Redlining Continues to Reverberate in Seattle Nearly a Century Later in Pedestrian Deaths
Could the decades-old government housing discrimination program, commonly called redlining, have anything to do with pedestrian fatalities today? According to a recent national study that compared federal redlining maps of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation with data on 2010–2019 pedestrian deaths from the national Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the answer is yes. A recent study…
News | December 20, 2016
Reflections on Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change
On November 7th and 8th Urban@UW, in collaboration with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group (CIG), hosted a symposium to begin transdisciplinary conversation on the multifaceted dynamics and consequences of Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change (UEJ). Below are some reflections from this event, and a sample of the resources we’ll…
News | September 16, 2024
Register Today for Urban@UW’s presentation at Climate Week NYC
Urban@UW is heading to the big apple for Climate Week NYC, the largest international conference of business leaders, political change makers, scientists, and civil society representatives working for climate action. Rachel Berney, Faculty Director, and Kate Landis, Program Manager, will present “Call Me, Maybe? University-Community Partnerships for a Greener Tomorrow” on Monday, 9/23, from 5-7PM….
News | January 16, 2020
Regularly immersing yourself in nature can help health and wellbeing
How long does it take to get a dose of nature high enough to make people say they feel healthy and have a strong sense of well-being? Precisely 120 minutes. In a study of 20,000 people, a team led by Mathew White of the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at University of Exeter,…
News | March 9, 2016
Report By UW Labor Studies Student Details Music Industry’s $1.8 Billion Boon to Seattle’s Economy
A new study commissioned by Seattle musicians’ union and authored by Geography PhD student Megan Brown found that 16,607 people are directly employed in the city’s music industry, creating $1.8 billion annually in direct economic impact. Including jobs dependent on music, the industry creates $4.3 billion in economic output, supporting 30,660 jobs. Yet despite a…
Scholar
Resat Kasaba
Visit scholar websiteCourse | GEOG 578
Research Seminar: Theorizing the City
Considers classic and contemporary writings in urban theory in the twentieth century, including social ecology (Chicago School), political economy, and contemporary theoretical debates in post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and culture as they relate to cities and space.Scholar
Reuben Deleon
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Richard Watts
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Robert Pekkanen
Visit scholar websiteCourse | HSTEU 250 / ITAL 250
Rome
Focuses on Rome as an historical, intellectual, and artistic world center. Literary and historic documents, visual arts, architecture, film, and opera used to explore the changing paradigms of the Eternal City.Scholar
Sally Clark
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Samuel Kay
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Sara Curran
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Sara Jo Breslow
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Sarah Elwood
Visit scholar websiteNews | July 30, 2020
Searching for climate and inequity hot spots, by car
Fifteen cars with blue snorkels jutting up from their passenger windows drove around King County on Monday, the hottest day the Seattle area has seen in 2020. Volunteer drivers crisscrossed roads from Shoreline to Enumclaw. Their odd window attachments were used to record temperature and humidity measurements every second. Shortly after sunrise, when the city’s…
News | July 14, 2020
Searching for Seattle’s hidden Latino history
Just about every week in the Seattle area, it seems, there’s news of yet another iconic local theater or ornate apartment building threatened with demolition. It’s part of the deal for a booming region where people want to live and work, and where developers and investors are eager to capitalize on real estate transactions and…
News | April 8, 2024
Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai launches new public poetry project on April 1
Originally reported in Northwest Asian Weekly by Kai Curry. National Poetry Month takes place every year in April. Its purpose is to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry nationwide. This year, Seattle residents will have the privilege and pleasure of discovering, installed throughout various parts of the city, poems by local poets on topics of…
News | January 25, 2019
Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project Launches Newly Designed Website
The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project currently records slightly more than 31,000 page views every month, 372,000 in the past year. And now, thanks to a new, mobile-friendly design, pages are more readable and can be scaled to cell phones and smaller devices, which will help bring more traffic to the project and encourage users…
News | August 28, 2018
Seattle Growth Podcast 5.4: Homelessness and City Hall
The fifth season of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues the wide-ranging conversation about the city’s growing homelessness crisis. Episode 4 takes you behind the scenes at Seattle City Hall as the City Council weighed a controversial “head tax” on companies to raise more money to address the crisis. City Council member Teresa Mosqueda shares her opinion on the failed campaign and…
News | April 4, 2023
Seattle Has a Dearth of Monuments to Women
Among hundreds of pieces of public art in Seattle, you’ll find few depicting real-life women from any point in history. The City of Seattle’s civic art collection, which includes more than 400 permanent installations, contains only one outdoor monument honoring a female historical figure. That sculpture is of Sadako Sasaki, who survived the Hiroshima bombing…
News | January 9, 2024
Seattle now has highest minimum wage of any major city in the United States
As of Jan. 1, Seattle hiked its minimum wage to $19.97 an hour for workers at larger companies like Starbucks. That’s the highest minimum wage of any major city in the U.S. Former labor leader David Rolf, who drove the original push for a higher minimum wage law in Seattle and SeaTac around a decade…
News | July 10, 2024
Seattle Nurses Take Heart Care to the Streets
Written by Christine Clarridge for Axios. Two Harborview nurses are leaving the hospital to make “house calls” at tents, bus stops and cars to bring life-saving heart care to people where they are. Why it matters: The Community Heart Failure Program not only stabilizes patients’ cardiac health but also reduces hospital admissions, lengths of stay…
News | May 17, 2019
Seattle port could play key role in race to rule the Arctic
In the 1890s, Seattle was the gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush. As countries eye the warming Arctic in a 21st century rush to establish maritime trade routes and exploit natural resources, Puget Sound is once again poised to serve a vital support role. That, at least, is the vision that U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of…
News | May 7, 2016
Seattle’s ‘Diverse’ Neighborhoods Are Surprisingly Segregated
Seattleites know they live in a racially segregated city. White people live north; black people and Asians live south. But there are a handful of neighborhoods that have become increasingly integrated in recent years – namely, Columbia City and the Central District. But University of Washington sociology doctoral students found that those neighborhoods may not…
News | June 30, 2020
Seattle’s activist-occupied zone is just the latest in a long history of movements and protests
The six blocks of occupied Seattle streets now known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or “CHOP”, have become a focal point of the nationwide anti-racist protests, eliciting both encouragement and concern. But for this Pacific Northwest city, it is far from the first time in the radical spotlight. Seattle has a long and storied history of…
News | July 22, 2022
Seattle’s soda tax benefits low-income communities, study finds
A new study concludes that Seattle’s soda tax isn’t disproportionately harming lower-income families — and is actually benefiting lower-income households as a group. University of Washington researchers analyzed sugary drink purchases across more than 1,100 households in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle in the first year the cities enacted soda taxes. In all three cities,…
News | June 11, 2019
Seattle’s forgotten street community: UW anthropologist talks about the unique circumstances of vehicle residency
From tiny houses to encampment sweeps, from proposed business taxes to small armies of volunteers, Seattle’s homeless crisis has sparked a series of possible solutions, along with controversy. But often missing from conversations about “homelessness,” says the University of Washington’s Graham Pruss, is attention to people who live in their vehicles. More than 11,000 people are…
News | June 27, 2022
Seattle’s history of Black language: African American English, code-switching and why it matters today
“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round” is a crowd favorite for the Northwest African American Museum’s African American Choir Ensemble. Based on the spiritual “Don’t You Let Nobody Turn You ’Round,” the song is a civil rights anthem with lyrics that reflect a piece of the Black experience: “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me…
News | July 12, 2022
Seattle’s Homelessness Chief Worries Inflation Will Erode Progress
The head of Seattle’s new agency responding to homelessness — in a city with one of the largest unhoused populations in the US — is concerned more people are about to land on the street because of inflation and rising prices for necessities like gas. With the pandemic making the challenges of homelessness more acute and more visible, Margaret…
News | April 26, 2024
Seattle’s troubled past and present suggest a new approach to mental health
Written by Will James, Sydney Brownstone, and Esme Jimenez as part of the series “Lost Patients” for KUOW, an NPR Station. Edward Moore, a 32-year-old sailor, was discovered, near freezing and living in a tattered tent on the shore near current day Seattle in 1854. At the time, Washington was still a territory and Seattle…
News | May 21, 2016
Seismic Neglect: Buildings and Earthquakes
Seismic Neglect | In the first part of a continuing series, The Seattle Times examined officials’ neglect of the most vulnerable kind of building: old, brick structures called unreinforced masonry. Here are answers to some common questions about those buildings. The Northwest is threatened by earthquakes far more destructive than anything Washington state has experienced…
News | September 29, 2016
September Recap – News, Big Data, and Monthly Hightlights
September is nearly gone, but this was not a very sleepy month. The University of Washington has started the new school year and the past month has seen some tremendous developments for urban thinking and the City of Seattle. KQED published a piece about urban heat islands and how changes in landcover from hard-scapes and…
Scholar
Shannon Harper
Visit scholar websiteScholar
Shirley J. Yee
Visit scholar websiteNews | January 25, 2018
Shocker: It’s mostly men moving to Seattle for tech jobs
For every four men who moved to Seattle for a tech job in the last decade, only one woman did, too, according to a recent analysis that looked at the trend of tech transplants nationwide.To industry experts and academics, the findings from the careers website Paysa.com came as no surprise. The data is more of…
News | February 1, 2024
Should social media pay for addicting kids? Seattle schools lawsuit gains steam
Reported by KUOW Written by Sami West A year into Seattle Public Schools’ lawsuit against social media companies, the case is gaining traction. More than 50 school districts in Washington state — and dozens more across the country — have joined Seattle’s lawsuit. Seattle became the first district to sue social media platforms last January,…
News | December 15, 2017
Skid Road: The intersection of health and homelessness
After years of caring for the homeless in the streets and dilapidated motels of Richmond, Virginia, nurse Josephine Ensign became homeless herself. Many of her patients were prostitutes—some as young as 15—and her conscience no longer allowed her to adhere to her clinic’s policies. Though she was Christian, she was fired for referring many of…
Course | COM 303
Social Effects of Technology and Social Media
Examines the impact of information/communication technology and social media on individuals and society. Adopts a variety of theoretical, empirical, and popular understandings to assess how technology may bring about social change.Course | GEOG 478
Social Justice and the City
Provides a link between general theories of urban inequality and their specific manifestation in the United States. Explores a series of themes related to contemporary urbanization processes including the recent mortgage crisis, segregation, gentrification, enclaves, fortification, redevelopment, homelessness, and the loss of public space.Course | ANTH 339 / GWSS 339 / JSIS A 339
Social Movements in Contemporary India
Covers issues of social change, economic development, and identity politics in contemporary India studied through environmental and women's movements. Includes critiques of development and conflicts over forests, dams, women's rights, religious community, ethnicity, and citizenship.Course | ANTH 449, JSIS A 405
Social Transformation of Modern East Asia
Comparative study of social change in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam since 1945. Concentration on small-scale social units in rural and urban areas under both communist and capitalist political systems.Course | ANTH 433 / LING 433
Sociolinguistics II
Examines field methods linguists use in socially oriented studies of language variation and change. Includes language attitudes, study of urban dialects, syntactic variation, sampling and interview design. Discussion of issues related to recording, ethics, and analysis of large bodies of data.Degree Program
Sociology (Major, PhD)
The Department of Sociology at the University of Washington is one of the oldest Sociology departments in the country. Our distinguished faculty is actively engaged in both research and teaching, and we aim to bring excitement about Sociology to all our interactions with students. Our undergraduate major graduates several hundred students each year, and offers…
Visit program websiteCourse | SOC 403
Sociology in Practice: Applied Community Research Program
Participation in a project-based research group for a real-world client, addressing complex and enduring problems of urban life.Course | SOC 420
Sociology of Food
Provides a historical and comparative overview of what people eat and how this relates to other types of social differentiation.Course | ANTH 412, JSIS A 412
South Asian Social Structure
Examines caste, class, and community in modern India. Transitions from colonial typology to analysis of social change, diversity, stability, and caste hierarchy in rural society. Current debates on class and community in Indian society, rural and urban, explored through themes of identity, structure, and mobility.News | March 16, 2016
Southern Urbanisms: Edgar Pieterse and Jean-Marie Teno (1 cr. seminar)
This microseminar addresses the emergence of global urbanisms and especially southern urbanisms, focusing on the dramatic urbanization of Africa and the resurgence of African urban studies. The course is coordinated with the visits of the influential scholar of African urbanisms Edgar Pieterse (University of Cape Town) and renowned African filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno. Their visit provides…
News | July 16, 2024
SPARK Grant Recipients Win Big with a Social Justice Jacket
Reported by Kate Landis for Urban@UW What if a denim jacket could tell the stories of people impacted by housing inequality across the country? Resistive Threads, a project that was awarded a Urban@UW SPARK grant in 2023, was recently awarded a Honorable Mention at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference,…
Course | GEOG 505
Spatial Dimensions of Chinese Development
Addresses several major spatial topics critical to present-day China's development, including: population and land relationship, the spatial structures of economic activities and governments; rural-urban relations and transition; central-local relations; the hukou system; population mobility at different spatial scales and urban centers.Scholar
Spencer Cohen
Visit scholar websiteCourse | HSTEU 245
St. Petersburg/Leningrad: City as History
Introduction of political, social, and cultural history of St. Petersburg from 1703-1991. Uses St. Petersburg as a window to explore major themes in Imperial Russian and Soviet history, including westernization and questioning of Russia's national identity, urbanization, industrialization, revolution, multinational empire, World War II, Stalinism, and socialistic reformism.Scholar
Stephen M. Gardiner
Visit scholar websiteScholar
Stephen Meyers
Visit scholar websiteScholar
Stevan Harrell
Visit scholar websiteScholar
Steve Herbert
Visit scholar websiteNews | August 20, 2018
Student volunteers help expand UW’s outreach to homeless youth
It started with a Sunday afternoon café outside a community center last December — the University of Washington’s new initiative to reach homeless youth around the U District. In the eight months since, the UW’s effort, known as The Doorway Project, has offered a café in the neighborhood each quarter, while students have helped add services — from…
News | July 21, 2016
Study: Perceived threats from police officers, black men predict support for policing reforms
At a time of intense national attention on law enforcement and race, a new University of Washington study suggests that racially based fear plays a role in public support for policing reforms. The research, conducted by UW postdoctoral researcher Allison Skinner and published online July 12 in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology, used a…
Scholar
Susan E. Collins
Visit scholar websiteCourse | ANTH 378
Sustainability, Resilience, and Society
Introduction to concepts of sustainability and resilience and their relevance to environment and society in the current Anthropocene era. Understanding sustainability and resilience through ecological footprints, lessons from small-scale societies, case studies of resource management, theory of common property regimes, philosophies of environmental stewardship, and implications of climate change.Scholar
Suzanne Davies Withers
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Tad Hirsch
Visit scholar websiteCourse | JSIS 535
Technology, Society, and the Future
Provides understanding of how technology is changing society. Enables students to articulate the risks and opportunities associated with rapid technological change. Students formulate and evaluate the motivations, agendas, and stakeholders shaping technological change, including corporations, civil liberties groups, advocacy groups, NGOs, donors, and government leaders.News | April 10, 2021
Tents in Seattle increased by more than 50% after COVID pandemic began, survey says
Oleg Shpungin usually avoids sleeping in tents. They’re creepy, he says, when he can hear someone approaching but can’t see if they’re about to rob him — and he’s been robbed enough. “A tent is a very dangerous life,” Shpungin said. But on Monday night, he was cold and weak, and his friend had an open tent…
News | August 31, 2020
Terms in Seattle-area rental ads reinforce neighborhood segregation, study says
A new University of Washington study of thousands of local rental ads finds a pattern of “racialized language” that can perpetuate neighborhood segregation, using specific terms to describe apartments in different areas of town. Terms like “convenient” and “safe and secure” are more common in neighborhoods with a greater proportion of people of color, while…
Scholar
Thaisa Way
Visit scholar websiteCourse | HSTAA 413
The American West in History and Film
Examines emergence of American West since 1840 by looking at colonization processes; Native-white relations; economic and demographic changes; environmental issues; urbanization; western politics and the role of the state. Historians' evolving interpretations of the western past are considered alongside those in film in order to appreciate why the West has loomed so large in 20th-century American culture and identity.News | July 5, 2017
The biggest cliché in tech is hurting cities
If you don’t live in Silicon Valley, chances are you live in its close relative: “the next Silicon Valley.” The label has been slapped with abandon on towns, cities, regions, or sometimes entire countries. All it takes is an uptick in job growth, an influx of startups, or a new coding bootcamp for the cliche…
Course | CHSTU 101
The Chicano/Mexican Ethnic Experience in the United States
Examines the Chicano/Mexican American experience, with a focus on past and contemporary issues of race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.Course | SPAN 479
The City and Latin American Literature: Points of Departure
Representations of Latin American, United States, and European cities by Latin American authors, and of Latin American and Latino cities by authors from other literary traditions. The literary relation of urbanization to modernization, globalization, exile, and alienation.Course | SOC 415
The City and Neighborhood Dynamics
Focuses on a diverse set of topics including the changing social meaning of community, the effects of the urban setting on social interactions and attitudes, urban poverty, residential segregation, and the neighborhood dynamics of crime. Students have the opportunity to contribute directly to research- and policy-related projects.Course | HSTAA 208
The City: People, Place, and Environments
Surveys the history of cities in North America and around the globe from 1800 to the present. Considers economic and technological change; politics and government; city planning and landscaping design; migration and immigration, race, gender, and class; suburbanization; popular culture; and natural environments and natural disasters.News | March 23, 2017
The creation of the Burke-Gilman Trail
On Sunday, Sept. 12, 1971, hundreds of people began marching toward Matthews Beach Park along the shores of Lake Washington north of Sand Point. Families, couples, adults and senior citizens converged on the park in two streams – one from the south, one from the north. They marched there that sunny late-summer afternoon along old…
Course | GEOG 470
The Cultural Politics of Food
Explores ways our understanding of the concepts of "food" and "eating" are culturally and spatially constructed by societal structures, power relations, and media representations. Drawing from research in cultural geography and critical food studies, examines the connections between food, culture, the media, politics, and economics.News | March 3, 2020
The Effects of Seattle Housing Crisis
Aaron, who lives with his wife Silje and their two children in a parking lot outside of Seattle, begins his day in darkness, making a two-hour commute by scooter and bus to his job at the post office. “You do what you need to get through a given day. You get rest when you can,”…
News | May 20, 2022
The extraordinary heat wave in India and Pakistan, explained
Nearly one in eight people on Earth are enduring a relentless, lethal heat wave that is stretching into its third week. Triple-digit temperatures are continuing to bake swaths of India and Pakistan, a region home to 1.5 billion people. Extreme heat has also scorched Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent weeks. For India, this past April was…
Course | JSIS B 351
The Global Environment
Explores the environment in international perspective emphasizing the social implications of living in an economically globalized and environmentally interconnected world. Examines these implications through examples of toxics and the human body, biodiversity conservation, climate change, disease, and environmental problems.News | August 27, 2020
The historian of Seattle hip-hop
In 1979, when Daudi Abe was 9, his father took him to Dirt Cheap Records and set him loose to explore. After a few minutes in the Central District store, Abe came up to the cashier carrying a 12-inch vinyl single with the words “Sugar Hill” across the top. “I just liked the sky-blue cover,”…
Course | AIS 103 / JSIS 100
The Indigenous Pacific Northwest
Introduction to the cultures and governing structures of indigenous peoples of American Indian and First Nations tribal communities in the North, coastal British Columbia, and Pacific Northwest region as self-determining political actors in a contemporary multicultural and global region.News | November 18, 2019
The law that’s helping fuel Delhi’s deadly air pollution
Another cloud of choking smoke and dust is set to descend upon the 20 million residents of Delhi this week, with forecasters warning that air pollution is likely to reach “severe” or “emergency” levels on Wednesday. The dangerous, dirty air is arising from a mix of weather conditions, urban emissions, and rural smoke converging over India’s capital…
News | January 30, 2020
The Middle-Class Housing Crisis in Seattle
Kara Peters works at Seattle’s Central Library. She’s a third-generation Washingtonian who grew up in West Seattle. “Grandma, she did Mary Kay. She had four daughters who all went to West Seattle High School,” Peters said. But unlike her parents and grandparents, Peters can’t afford a house in Seattle, even though she makes a decent income. In…
Course | SOC 459
The New Inequality
Examines "who gets what" in contemporary societies. Students will learn not only how income, wealth, housing, and health are unequally distributed, but how individuals or groups differ in access to "public goods" or the protection of legal rights and liberties. Examines some of the leading explanations for these inequalities, and applies these theories to specific social problems in the U.S. and around the world.Course | GEOG 302
The Pacific Northwest
Settlement pattern in the Pacific Northwest, emphasizing economic and historical factors, including the location of resource-oriented industries, policies regarding the use of public lands, and bases of the development of major urban areas in the region.News | September 9, 2022
The Past, Present and Future of Tipping and Tipped Workers in Seattle
Today, Washington state and Seattle have some of the best laws in the U.S. when it comes to protecting tipped workers, but the practice of tipping has an ugly beginning and a rocky past. As service industries (where most tipping happens) continue to be shaken up by the pandemic, and as the emerging gig economy…
News | August 30, 2024
The pros and cons of spraying pesticides to keep disease-carrying mosquito populations down
Written by Julia Jacobo for ABC News Researchers are trying to find ways to quell growing mosquito populations that spread disease without putting recovering populations of important pollinators like bees and butterflies at risk. Pesticides are an important management tool for mosquito control as well as for other pests that impact agriculture, Laura Melissa Guzman, assistant…
Course | SOC 490
The Urban Underclass
Examines underlying issues which have led to the emergence and perpetuation of an underclass within an affluent society. Explores some of the consequences for these people and for this society. Considers policies that might be used to address problems of the urban underclass.Course | HSTAA 412
The Westward Movement, 1700-1850
Anglo-American advance into interior continental United States culminating in Far West occupation. Rivalry with New France and Spain in colonial period; role of federal government in westward expansion; land policy and distribution; migration, settlement, and pioneering; federal Indian policies and implementation; political evolution, urbanization, and economic development of trans-Appalachian West; shaping national character and institutions.News | January 6, 2021
The year inequality became less visible, and more visible than ever
This year, many Americans left the places where it was still possible to encounter one another. White-collar workers stopped going downtown, past homeless encampments and to lunch counters with minimum-wage staff. The well-off stopped riding public transit, where in some cities they once sat alongside commuting students and custodial workers. Diners stopped eating in restaurants,…
News | February 10, 2023
There are 4,000 racist housing covenants in Pierce County. You can find them on a map
Professor of history James Gregory knows the subject well. For roughly two decades, he’s been unearthing the ugly, racist underpinnings of racial disparities in wealth and homeownership seen to this day across Puget Sound. For Gregory, it started in 2005, when he first began to dig into discriminatory housing covenants in Seattle and later King…
News | October 29, 2024
This Atlanta neighborhood hired a case manager to address rising homelessness − and it’s improving health and safety for everyone
Reported by Ishita Chordia, Ph.D. Candidate in Information Science, University of Washington Homelessness has surged across the United States in recent years, rising 19% from 2016 though 2023. The main cause is a severe shortage of affordable housing. Rising homelessness has renewed debates about use of public space and how encampments affect public safety. The…
Scholar
Thom H. Dunning, Jr.
Visit scholar websiteNews | May 25, 2023
Thousands of Amazon Staffers Are Pouring into Its Seattle Offices
Tony Wang’s truck Yumbit is located on the corner of 6th Avenue and Lenora Street, the shiny heart of what some here playfully call “Amazonia”, after Amazon, the largest employer in the downtown area. And the extra customers that he and similar outlets are scrambling to serve are some of the 55,000 employees Amazon ordered…
Scholar
Tim Thomas
Visit scholar websiteNews | March 19, 2024
To report or not report ‘suspicious people’ near campus
Originally reported in The Daily by Shira Sur It took three encounters with a person threatening bypassers near the West Campus dorms for first-year student Hannah Whitemarsh to call 911. Whitemarsh’s call to UWPD, which was made in mid-October of 2023, was transferred to the Seattle Police Department (SPD). After she was asked whether the…
Course | LING 533
Topics and Methods in Sociolinguistic Theory
Examines field methods linguists use in socially oriented studies of language variation and change. Includes language attitudes, study of urban dialects, syntactic variation, sampling and interview design. Discussion of issues related to recording, ethics, and analysis of large bodies of data.News | March 31, 2016
Towards a Speculative Politics for African Cities with Edgar Pieterse – 4/12
Join us April 12 at Kane Hall (Room 120) for Visiting Scholar Edgar Pieterse, Please Register for this Public Event Towards a Speculative Politics for African Cities The available frames to understand and reimagine contemporary urban politics in the African context come down two divergent pathways: 1) build the institutional infrastructure to enact the deliberative…
Course | JSIS 537
Trends in International Migration
Explores the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of contemporary global population movements, with a focus on migration to the United States and Europe from the top sending world regions. Topics include the relationship of persecution, conflict, and poor economic prospects to migration; the extent to which state policies can control migration.Course | ART H 491 / ARCH 457
Twentieth-Century Architecture
Architecture in the twentieth century, mainly in Europe and the United States. Traces roots of Modernism in Europe in the 1920s, its demise (largely in the United States) in the 1960s, and recent trends such as Post-Modernism and Deconstructivism.Scholar
Tyler H. McCormick
Visit scholar websiteCourse | CHSTU 359 / POL S 359
U.S. Latino Politics
Examines historical and current political incorporation of Latinos in the United States. Topics include Latino voting and voter mobilization, office seeking and representation, Latino public opinion, and public policy formation on "Latino issues."Course | AES 442
Undocumented Immigrant Communities
Sociological examination of the concepts of undocumented, citizen, and the structuring of (il)legality as they are situated in axes of power, specifically in racialized and gendered contexts. Topics include identity formation and experiences across communities, i.e., UndocuLatino, UndocuBlack, UndocuAsian and Pacific Islander, and UndocuQueer. Institutional outcomes in migration, law, labor, education, carceral spaces, and health. Recommended: AES 150; AES 151; AES 322; AES 461; and AES 462. Fluency with discourses in race, ethnicity, and gender as well as a basic familiarity in studies of transnational migrations, inequality and globalization.Course | CHSTU 354
Unions, Labor, and Civil Rights in California and Pacific Northwest Agriculture
Comparative study of Southwest and Pacific Northwest farm workers against the social movement of the 1960s, its significance in the socio-political development of the Chicano civil rights movement, and its legacy. Uses historical and social science research methods along with analytical criticism to examine the period of social history.News | March 13, 2024
University of Washington study finds cities must prioritize youth mental health
Excerpted from KOIN/Channel Six in Portland Written by Michaela Bourgeois Researchers at the University of Washington conducted an international survey that found cities need to focus on youth mental health as younger generations flock to urban areas. Starting in April 2020, researchers worked with the nonprofit citiesRISE to survey over 500 people in 53 countries…
News | June 29, 2021
Urban areas of King County feel heat waves the most, study finds
Areas of King County with more paved landscapes and less tree canopy are feeling the heat more intensely than less urbanized areas, according to a new study from King County and the city of Seattle. More urbanized areas were as much as 20 degrees hotter due to an abundance of hard surfaces like parking lots, rooftops and…
Course | SOC 365
Urban Community
Comparative and analytic study of organization and activities of urban groups.News | April 22, 2019
Urban coyote evolution favors the bold
Coyotes become fearless around people in just a few generations—which isn’t good for their longterm co-existence with humans in cities. Coyotes are now common residents of many large urban areas. And while it doesn’t happen all that often, coyotes are increasingly coming into conflict with people and pets. “They’re these mid-sized carnivores, [though] most people…
Course | GEOG 461 / 561
Urban Geographic Information Systems
Use of geographic information systems to investigate urban/regional issues; focus on transportation, land-use and environmental issues; all urban change problems considered. GIS data processing strategies. Problem definition for GIS processing. Data collection, geo-coding issues. Data structuring strategies.Course | ANTH 405
Urban Health Methodologies: Ethnography of the Invisible in search of New Urban Commons
Conduct urban anthropology field-research and examine paths for human liberation while exploring connections between contemporary urban anthropology theoretical perspectives, critical medical anthropology, and new and emerging social possibilities for new urban commons. Emphasis placed on ethnographic methods, introduced through field exercises that require the application of one or more techniques.News | August 18, 2020
Urban heatwaves are worse for low-income neighborhoods
Temperatures this summer have hit record levels across major cities, such as New York, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, London, Athens, Baghdad, and Qatar. Yesterday, an excessive heat warning was issued for South Central and Southwest Arizona and Southeast California. Climate change is leading to increased severity and frequency of heat waves, sea-level rise, and flooding due to heavy rainfall. These events tend to hurt some groups…
News | June 26, 2015
Urban Land Teleconnections by Luke Bergmann
Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting
Course | GEOG 377
Urban Political Geography
Examines how the spatial structure of cities and towns affects and is affected by political processes. Considers both traditional and newer forms of politics, as global and local issues. Special attention paid to where politics take place within local contexts across state, civil society, home, and the body.Course | GEOG 573
Urban Political Geography: Research Seminar
Covers both classic and contemporary theoretical debates and research on the relation between power, place, and the local scale. Considers both conventional sites (e.g., the local state) as well as new forms and locations of city politics (e.g., sexuality and the body).Course | POL S 381
Urban Politics and Policy in the United States
Introduces actors, institutions, processes, and policies of substate governments in the United States. Provides and intensive comparative examination of historical and contemporary politics and policy-making. Promotes understanding of city government and its role within the larger context of state and national governments.News | March 28, 2018
Urban Scholar Highlight: Josephine Ensign
Josephine Ensign is a Professor in University of Washington’s School of Nursing and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, Affiliate Faculty in UW’s Certificate Program in Public Scholarship, and coordinator of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative’s Doorway Project—which is hosting a popup cafe in honor of Earth Day on April 22!…
News | April 23, 2018
Urban Scholar Highlight: Margaret O’Mara
Margaret O’Mara is a Professor in the Department of History and a founding member of Urban@UW. She writes and teaches about the urban, political, and economic history of the modern United States. What led you to your current research interests? I’ve always been interested in how politics and government work with business and economics, and…
News | April 3, 2024
Urban@UW announces second cycle of Research to Action Collaboratory projects
Urban@UW is excited to announce the project teams selected for the second Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) cohort. Throughout the next 18 months, Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicate time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and foster opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These two project…
News | March 1, 2022
Urban@UW anti-displacement workshop generates connections, ideas, and opportunities for further partnership.
On January 25th and 26th, Urban@UW hosted a virtual workshop that brought together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and community partners to elevate key perspectives and facilitate cross-boundary discussions and action around the capacity for people to stay in place and stay in the community in the face of displacement. The workshop built on discussions initiated by…
News | October 20, 2017
Urban@UW compiles Faculty Highlights Report for research, teaching and engagement on homelessness
As part of its recently launched Homelessess Research Initiative, Urban@UW has collaborated with faculty and staff across all three UW campuses to compile a broad-ranging selection of powerful and robust projects addressing homelessness from a research lens. Check out the Faculty Highlights Report to learn more about these efforts and the people behind them.
News | November 26, 2024
Urban@UW is working toward a future where cities are hubs of innovation, inclusivity, & sustainability.
Research-to-Action Teams 2023-2024 In April of 2023 the teams selected for the inaugural cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) were announced. These groups combine the research capabilities of University of Washington scholars with frontline leaders embedded in their communities and government officials who can codify change. The Research-to-Action Collaboratory provides the teams with…
News | August 18, 2020
Urban@UW Research Spark Grants awardees announced
Urban@UW is excited to announce the awardees for our Research Spark Grants program. The two proposals selected address urgent urban challenges in our region, with a strong focus on community engagement and vulnerable populations. Co-creating an Adaptive Community-Science Network: Supporting Tribal and Grassroots Action through the Puget Creek Watershed Assessment Urban communities in the…
News | November 26, 2024
Urban@UW unites research, community insight, and policy to drive innovation for resilient and equitable cities.
Inclusive Data-Driven Innovation for the Future of Cities Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. In partnership with the College…
News | November 1, 2024
Urban@UW’s Research to Action Teams Gather for a Fall Workshop
What do Microforests, the historic University of Tacoma campus, refugee resettlement, greenwater recycling, everything bagels and tasty Thai food have in common? They all played a part in October’s Research to Action teams retreat, led by Urban@UW. Urban@UW brings together multidisciplinary academics and embedded community leaders to solve complex urban challenges through the Research to…
News | November 26, 2024
Urban@UW’s Research to Action Collaboratory provides funding, facilitation, & tools to empower cross-disciplinary teams to solve urban problems
About the RAC The Research to Action Collaboratory serves as a catalyst for research teams, building their transformational collaborative capacity to address today’s most pressing urban challenges. The RAC combines financial support, thought partnership, and skill-building to increase the capacity of scholars, community stakeholders, and the UW for impactful, collaborative research. Today’s most pressing problems—from…
Course | SOC 430/530
Urbanism and Urbanization
Human population distribution and migration patterns. Causes and consequences of world urbanization. Spatial and social patterns in the metropolis. Aggregate population movements and selectivity of migrants.Course | ENVIR 221
US Environmental History: Ecology, Culture, Justice
Covers the intertwined history of the environment and American society, focusing on issues of inequality and justice. Topics include colonialism, capitalist expansion, chemical and nuclear industrialism, the environmental inequalities of cities and suburbs, environmental movements, and environmental justice.News | April 20, 2017
USGS, partners launch a unified, West Coast-wide earthquake early warning system
The U.S. Geological Survey and university, public and private partners held an event April 10 at the University of Washington to introduce the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning program as a unified, West Coast-wide system. The event also introduced the first pilot uses of the earthquake early warning in Washington and Oregon. The first Pacific Northwest…
News | June 3, 2022
UW Ph.D. students hold symposium on the role of technology in urban environments into the future
Originally written by Mingming Cai, Ana Costa, Kristin Potterton & Salman Rashdi. On May 20th, students in University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning and Ph.D. Program in the Built Environment hosted the virtual 2022 annual research symposium. Based on the theme, Pathways toward the future: Assessing the digital dimensions of…
News | December 20, 2016
UW professor: Seattle exposed to most ‘chronically high noise levels’ of any city in US
How Seattle’s development is impacting your health and, more specifically, your ears is not something being taken into account by city leaders, according to a University of Washington professor. And changing an ordinance that mutes construction’s noise pollution to match other cities from around the country might be a potent elixir, he says. Eliot Brenowitz,…
News | June 21, 2022
UW professors help lead Black Arts Legacies project
When Kemi Adeyemi, Assistant Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, signed on to help lead Crosscut’s Black Arts Legacies project, she brought a history of deep thinking on the role that the arts play in Black culture, and what the work of these artists can reveal. “Black artists tell us stories about what it…
News | December 7, 2015
UW project focuses on fines and fees that create ‘prisoners of debt’
Criminals are meant to pay their debts to society through sentencing, but a different type of court-imposed debt can tie them to the criminal justice system for life and impact their ability to move forward with their lives. Though debtors’ prisons were eliminated in the United States almost two centuries ago, a modern-day version exists…
News | September 27, 2017
UW researchers analyze effects of minimum wage on seattle food prices
Affiliates UW Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Services Jennifer Otten (lead author), UW Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance Jake Vigdor, and Evans School’s Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Public policy and Governance and Adjunct Professor of Economics Mark Long…
News | October 6, 2020
UW researchers driving around Seattle to track COVID-19 response over time
As the city of Seattle shut down in March 2020 to try to slow the spread of COVID-19, a group of University of Washington researchers got to work. The team developed a project that scans the streets every few weeks to document what’s happening around the city — answering questions such as: Are people outside?…
News | June 17, 2015
UW Students put GIS Skills to Use on Social Justice Projects
Geography Students in Professor Sarah Elwood’s GIS Workshop course are applying lessons learned to projects with local nonprofits.
News | December 15, 2021
UW study finds Seattle $15 minimum wage ‘did little to offset widening inequality’
University of Washington researchers have been conducting studies into various facets of Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage for years. For their latest study, they looked into how the higher minimum wage has addressed (or failed to address) income inequality. Seattle minimum wage will increase on Jan. 1 The study found that over a 12-year period, inequality…
News | March 15, 2024
UW’s College of Built Environments Professor Faces an Electrifying Challenge
Reported by Jen Moss for the University of Washington’ College of Built Environments King County Metro (Metro), which serves a daily average of over 250,000 riders across more than 203 square miles of the county, has an emissions challenge. Their zero-carbon emissions target, set by the King County Council, must be met by 2035. This…
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Vanessa Freije
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Victoria Lawson
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Virginia takes a big step against criminalizing poverty
Virginia will no longer suspend driver’s licenses because people owe court debt, thanks to legislation that was signed into law last week. The state has been suspending hundreds of thousands of licenses each year, disproportionately those of African Americans and lower-income Virginians. “Payment systems are not sustainable because people are robbing from rent and from putting food…
News | October 7, 2024
WA Gen Z voters excited, but turnout still a toss-up
Reported by Paris Jackson for Cascade/PBS There’s a surge in interest among young voters, those considered Generation Z, this election cycle. They’re outspoken, savvy and civically engaged. Gen Z’ers are those born between 1997 and 2012, according to Pew Research. They’re touted as the generation that grew up with the internet as an integral part…
News | May 20, 2024
Washington overdose deaths continued to rise in 2023 while national trends declined, but there’s hope
Reported by Kate Walters for KUOW/NPR Overdose deaths in Washington state continued to rise throughout 2023, bucking the national trend. According to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, reported overdose deaths across the U.S. fell by roughly 5% in 2023, compared to 2022. In contrast, Washington state saw…
News | May 9, 2023
Washington Seeks to Repair Harm Caused by Racially Restrictive Real Estate Covenants
Washington state is setting aside money to help people who were hurt by racially restrictive real estate covenants — documents that were used to enforce segregation in the early- to mid-20th century. On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure into law Monday that will create a downpayment assistance program for people affected by the…
News | January 27, 2021
Washington tribes join lawsuit to stop sale of National Archives in Seattle
Concerned it would threaten their cultural preservation, history and treaty rights, 40 tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska joined a Jan. 4 lawsuit with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson to stop the federal government from selling the National Archives facility in Seattle and shipping its millions of boxes of records to California and Missouri….
News | November 19, 2017
What counts as nature? It all depends
The environment we grow up with informs how we define “nature,” UW psychology professor Peter Kahn says. Encounters with truly wild places inspire people to preserve them.Think, for a moment, about the last time you were out in nature. Were you in a city park? At a campground? On the beach? In the mountains? Now…
News | January 23, 2024
What Happened to Seattle’s Relationship with Boeing?
The aftermath of the Alaska blowout reveals that the connection is slowly unraveling. From Seattle Met Written by Benjamin Cassidy IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH of the fuselage blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month, Margaret O’Mara noticed something that would’ve once been unthinkable in Seattle. The University of Washington history professor observed that locals…
News | December 17, 2019
What happens when black Americans leave their segregated hometowns
Where someone grows up is profoundly important for their life chances. It influences things like the schools they attend, the jobs, parks and community resources they have access to and the peers they interact with. Because of this comprehensive influence, one might conclude that where you grow up affects your ability to move up the…
News | December 3, 2020
What happens when the eviction moratorium expires?
More than 171,000 Washington households are behind on rent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In normal times, every one of them could be issued a notice to vacate today, and face eviction in court in a matter of weeks. That’s not happening right now because Gov. Jay Inslee enacted a moratorium…
News | June 22, 2017
What the bond between homeless people and their pets demonstrates about compassion
A video camera captures an interview with a man named Spirit, who relaxes in an outdoor plaza on a sunny afternoon. Of his nearby service dogs, Kyya and Miniaga, he says, “They mean everything to me, and I mean everything to them.”In another video, three sweater-clad dogs scamper around a Los Angeles park, while their…
News | June 25, 2024
Why social media rarely leads to constructive political action
Written by Stefan Milne for UW News. While social media platforms are rife with problems — from harassment to misinformation — many argue that the platforms also nurture political movements, such as the Arab Spring and #MeToo. But in her new book “Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,” Katherine Cross, a University…
News | June 21, 2024
Why the First Heat Wave of the Summer Can Be the Most Dangerous
Written by Scott Dance for the Washington Post. In an average June, just a few days reach 90 degrees in Detroit. But by the time the year’s first blast of summer breaks in the Motor City this weekend, nearly a week of intense heat will have passed. And some of the most dangerous heat waves…
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William Hartmann
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William Rorabaugh
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With $50M infusion, UW to launch security center to fight research theft
Reported by Emerson Drewes for the Seattle Times The University of Washington will receive a $50 million investment over five years from the United States National Science Foundation to establish a national center for research security. Universities, including those in Washington, have been victims of cyberattacks and hacks in attempts to access, download, alter or…
Course | GWSS 385
Women and Activism in the U.S., 1820-1990s
Analyzes how U.S. social reform movements between the 1820s and the 1990s shaped discourses of gender, race, class, nation, and citizenship. Social movements include temperance, anti-prostitution, prison reform, dress reform, reproductive rights, eugenics, suffrage/anti-suffrage, abolitionism, labor, the "mothers' movement," civil rights, QBLTQ movement and dis/abilities, and evangelicalism.Course | GWSS 345 / ANTH 345 / JSIS B 345
Women and International Economic Development
Questions how women are affected by economic development in Third World and celebrates redefinitions of what development means. Introduces theoretical perspectives and methods to interrogate gender and development policies. Assesses current processes of globalization and potential for changing gender and economic inequalities.Course | GEOG 476 / GWSS 476
Women and the City
Explores the reciprocal relations between gender relations, the layout of cities, and the activities of urban residents. Topics include: feminist theory and geography (women, gender, and the organization of space); women and urban poverty, housing and homelessness; gender roles and labor patterns; geographies of childcare; and women and urban politics.Course | CHSTU 342
Working Latinas and Latinos: Changing Sites of Identity in Daily Life
Sociological examination of Latina/o working lives. Focuses on inequalities and power relations that shape diverse socio-economic working experiences and social change across distinct Latino communities. Covers race and gender consciousness, informal/formal work, labor recruitment, changing contexts of home and family, youth and children's work, entrepreneurship, organizing, and immigration and labor legislation.News | February 1, 2017
Working with community to tackle homelessness
Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end…
Course | JSIS B 365
World Cities
Factors that have propelled New York, London, and Tokyo into key positions in the organization of the late twentieth century international system. Asks historical and comparative questions and discusses the reasons behind the diminished position of cities such as Venice, Vienna, and Istanbul in that system.Scholar
Yomi Braester
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Youngjun Choe
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