American Places

If you're on the prowl before our next meeting for something stimulating to see, consider these films about Northwest places showing at the Capitol Theater: Great Speeches from A Dying World (Sunday at 5pm), and March Point (Monday at 5:30). Both involve a high degree of collaboration between the documentarists and the people they are working with.  

We are reducing the ammount of reading for Week 7.

Read Paley Pages ix -261, with special attention to "A Conversation
with my Father" and also read "Zagrowsky Tells" page 348 and "Listening"
Page 378.

Read Tuan, Space and Place, Chapters 10, 11, 13, 14 (Chapters 8, 9, and 11 optional

Read, Whitman, Crossing Brookly Ferry for Tuesday AM.

Remember to give your seminar leader a 1 p. statement on Tuesday, laying out your current idea for the major winter-spring project. It can be broad or specific, depending on your thinking at this point...

ACTIVITY GRANT FUNDING AVAILABLE FOR WINTER QUARTER

Foundation Activity Grant applications are due November 14 at 5 p.m, info workshop on Tuesday!

At the end of this week the faculty will be sending emails to students who are in jeopardy of losing credit (or may have already lost credit). Not receiving an email does not guarantee that you will be getting full credit at the end of the quarter. Mid-quarter is a time to reflect on your participation and work - feel free to talk with your faculty leader if you have any questions.

PLEASE WRITE ON THIS TOPIC (2-3 PAGES) FOR FRIDAY OCTOBER 31. BOOO!!

Tuan in Space and Place argues that places are constructed through experience. Both White’s Organic Machine and Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion illustrate how the experience of labor is central to the making of the Pacific Northwest as a place. Using evidence from either of these texts and Tuan, show how the experience of work leads the creation of the world of the Columbia River or of the Wakonda Auga.

You should have posted your passage from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven online on Moodle (click on "Student Work" link on right). This week, you should bring a copy of your reading of a passage from Native Seattle to Tuesday pre-seminar (where you get into small groups to discuss your passages and pick one to present to afternoon seminar) and afternoon seminar. Based on these discussions, you post your reading of a passage (with any revisions) online sometime Thursday, October 9, and respond to at least 3 other students by Sunday, October 12.

Our first class meeting is Tuesday, September 30 at 9am in SEM 2 D1105. We will end morning class at 11:30 and will reconvene for seminar at 1:30 to discuss Alexie. If you would like to read further ahead (always recommended, given the rich reading list) you might look at either Thrush or Kesey.

Our normal weekly schedule:

Tuesdays (starting Tuesday, October 7)
9:30-11:00 Program meeting in SEM 2 D1105

11:00-12:30 Pre-seminar (students discuss passages in small groups)

It's taken longer to get this site going than we anticipated in our summer letter. Here it is at last.

Some new bits of information:

There will be a program preview meeting on Monday, Sept. 22, from 9-10:30, in Sem2 B2109. Come if you're interested in meeting with the faculty to chat about American Places in advance of the first class. We'll try to answer any and all questions that are on your minds. If that time doesn't work, you can also find us at the Academic Fair in the College Recreation Center later that day, between 4-6.