The Future of Cars

Questions of Interest

As the negative aspects of the car become ever more apparent, what is the future of the automobile?
How will the car’s future affect us?
How does car culture affect identity, and how will changes to cars affect this?
How does the system of automobility affect different types of people?
How can we re-imagine the future of the car and their cities?

No technology has had a bigger impact–for better and for worse–on our lives and our planet than the automobile.

While the car continues to revolutionize the concept of transportation and shape where we live, it also helped to create our dependence on fossil fuels, increasing pollution and hastening climate change. In the Future of Cars Humanities Lab, interdisciplinary student and faculty teams—along with activists, engineers, and urban planners—will re-think the place of the automobile, addressing the complex

relationship we have with cars, including its impact on policies that have created, reinforced, and now may overturn automobility. Students will collaboratively on three core projects that explore the impact of the car on our daily lives, how the automobile has shaped how we think about the city, and how we might re-design the car and its context. Now, rev up your engines.

Course Learning Outcomes

Explore the changing role of cars in society through art, videography, and development of physical prototypes of future cars.
Work in interdisciplinary teams to explore the values, technologies, policies, and infrastructures that both shape and are shaped by the car.
Conduct historical research on how the cars has shaped the city and engage with artists to create new visions.
Develop an understanding about how to think of the future in concrete and collaborative ways.