Participation

You are expected to attend each class having read the week’s readings and prepared to discuss them. As part of that preparation, you will write 2-3 questions related to the week’s theme and readings and post them in a Google Doc by midnight the night before class. Please read each of your classmate’s questions prior to the start of class. If you need to miss a class, notify me ahead of time and we will then come up with a plan or alternative assignment to catch you up on what you missed.

Discussion Leader

Each week, a different student will act as the “discussion leader.” You have two responsibilities in that capacity:

1. Give a short, ten-minute presentation on at least one supplemental reading related to that week’s theme, explaining its significance and how it relates to the other readings for that week. These presentations will help expose the entire class to a wider body of scholarship related to space and place.
2. Guide the first ten minutes of discussion. I will not talk during this time; you are expected to have synthesized your classmates’ discussion questions and decided which discussion avenue(s) you wish to pursue.

Due to the number of enrolled students, some of you will need to pair up as discussion leaders. In those weeks, you will work together to coordinate the presentations and lead discussion jointly.

Final Project

In your final project, you will select a location and then construct and present a spatial interpretation about that location through a digital medium. The particulars of the project are up to you, including its spatial scale (building, neighborhood, landscape, region, etc.) and the mode of analysis and interpretation (Neatline or Storymap exhibit, audio or augmented reality walking tour, essay with embedded maps made in QGIS or ggplot2, 3D SketchUp project, etc.) This project can be created collaboratively or individually, and I will be working with you over the course of the semester to develop a feasible project and plan for completion. My only requirement is that you: a) develop and present a clear intellectual interpretation of space and place, and b) develop new skills - either by learning an unfamiliar method or by developing a substantially new level of expertise in a tool or technique with which you are already familiar.