Field Study Proposal

“Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other.” Yi-Fu Tuan writes in the introduction to Space and Place: the Perspective of Experience. This quarter the student will research space and place as philosophical and psychological ideas that contrast and complement each other as they form the basis of the human experience. Using the precepts of Goethean science as outlined in Craig Holdrege’s article “Doing Goethean Science,” she will be traveling to different locations to experience the affects of a variety of spaces and places on herself, that will result in a research paper and a chapbook of poetry and short prose on the subject. She will be participating in the As Poetry Recycles Neurons Tuesday seminars online, as well as working with an online peer writing group and continuing her “Not Knowing Notebook” started in Fall and Winter quarters. Daily somatics and writing exercises and poetry readings will serve as inspiration and help the student to immerse herself in and actively observe her environment.

Gallery:  As Space Becomes Place

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Weekly log and field notes

• P – Week 8 Log June 8, 2013 5.20.13:  1 morning pages, 1/2 meditation, 2 walking meditation/nature hike, 2 poetry workbook, 1 Wordpress, 1 Neuro/reverie 5.21.13:  3/4 morning pages, 1 walking meditation, 3 writing paper, 2 reading Everything Being ...
• P – Week 7 – Log & Update May 21, 2013 5.13.13:  1 morning pages, 1/2 Bodystories, 1/2 meditation, 2 nature hike, 1/2 Neuro reverie, 2 Wordpress 5.14.14:  1 morning pages, 2 notes for paper, 1 writing poetry 5.15.14:  1 morning pages, 1 ...
• P – Week 6 – Log & Update May 21, 2013 5.6.12:  1 somatics/meditation, 2 Poetics of Space, 2 notes for paper, 3/4 Morning Pages, 1/2 revise seminar pass, 1 log/update, 2 poetry writing, 1/2 walking meditation “It is a strange situation. ...
• P – Week 5 log and update May 9, 2013 So, I have not been keeping up with my updates lately like a good girl, so here goes: I have driven back and forth across the midwest several times in the ...
• P – Week 4 Log May 2, 2013 4-22-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 Tai Ji, 2 House of Incest (reading & writing), 2 freewriting, 2 reading Body & City, 1 seminar pass 4-23-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 Tai Ji, 2 Everything ...
• P – Week 3 Log May 1, 2013 4-15-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 Bodystories, 3 Body & City, 3 Space and Place, 4-16-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 yoga, 1 Space & Place, 1 active observation & notetaking, 2 reading Moodle handouts 4-17-13:  ...
• P – Week 2 Log May 1, 2013 Monday, 4-8-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 Bodystories, 2 reading Space and Place, 2 freewriting, 2 internet research Tuesday, 4-9-13:  1/2 MP, 1/2 Tai Ji, 4 hours fighting with WordPress, posting to Moodle, ...
• P – Week 1 Log May 1, 2013 Monday, 4-1-13:  1/2 hr morning pages, 2 reading Neuro, 1/2 roadside Tai Ji (I got some very strange looks from the truckers at the rest stop, and J made fun ...

Bachelardian Reverie

• P – Week 9 Reverie May 28, 2013 “Emotions course through the veins, engage the heart and the lungs, the bowels and the genitals, the muscles, the skin and face.” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 230) The physical reactions of the non-physical…can emotions ...
• P – Week 8 Reverie May 28, 2013 “Our Perception of the World Is a Fantasy That Coincides with Reality” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 207) Our perception of the world is a fantasy that coincides with reality on occasion if we’re lucky ...
• P – Week 7 Reverie May 15, 2013 “Lombroso’s catalogue of physical deformities and anomalies of behavior…laziness, frivolity, use of argot, tendency to adorn body and surroundings with hieroglyphics, moral insensibility, and emotional instability.” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 170) Tattoos spelling out ...
• P – Week 6 Reverie May 7, 2013 “What is in our nature is the fact that we humans are born incomplete, requiring interaction with others, and enmeshing in language, meaning, and culture, to be completed…we are not ...

Poetry, Prose & Miscellany

• P – Week 9 Poetry/Prose – “Everywhere and Nowhere” Everywhere and Nowhere As my journey closes I realize that space is all I’ve ever wanted and that I don’t want to feel penned in by place. I don’t need those ...
• P – Week 8 Poetry – “Personal Space” Personal Space At the start of this experiment I worry that we will grow tired of each other in such close quarters. All shared spaces with multiple uses, a clever design but with no eye ...
• P – Week 7 Poetry – “Longing For Space” Longing for Space I watch the clock and am waiting anxiously. My bag was packed days too early and still I shuffle and reshuffle my belongings, only one suitcase but it seems like far ...
• P – Week 6 Poem – Homecoming? The locals all think we’re wild gypsies –and maybe some of us are– “watch your wallets and hide your daughters.” They know the men by their muddy work boots and eternal sunburns, by eyes ...
• P – Week 5 Poem – “Fruit Stripe Barn” Fruit Stripe Barn   O fruit stripe barn, in the wilds of western Illinois, down an old highway traveled only by those seeking to avoid others, you rise from the oppressive flatness, a beacon of whimsy in the ...
• P – Week 4 – Roadspace Reverie Taking the old gold Mustang out on the backcountry roads. It’s older than I am but with decidedly more energy. The cassette tapes rattling around on the floorboard are all ...
• P – Week 4 – Headspace: a list Headspace: a record of my thoughts as I drive a big ass truck across two states by myself. -Why didn’t I get to drive the Mustang? I don’t care if the ...
• P – Week 4 Poem – “Kentucky Spring: haikus” Kentucky Spring: haikus   White butterfly flits among the wildflowers and trash, pausing to rest.   Purple tree among the green, standing alone and proud to be unique.   Cardinal couple and their bachelor friend in the rain, hunt for fat worms.   White ...
• P – Week 3 Poem – “Chemical Dependency” Chemical Dependency*   If, like the girl in the poem, my soul is in the shape of a square, as I suspect it is because I can sometimes feel it riding inside me, pressing against the ...
• P – Week 2 Prose – “Bonfire Reverie” 4-10-13 I’m sitting on a hill behind the house watching the bonfire burn in the hollow below, listening to the crickets in the tall grass at one end of the yard ...

Poetry Observed

Term Paper Abstract

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