Introduction to Place Studies Spring 08 Syllabus

Introduction to Place Studies

033:080, Literature, Science, and the Arts

169:080, Leisure Studies

Spring 2008

3:00-4:15 MW, 114 MacLean Hall

Thomas Dean
Office of the President, 230 Jessup Hall

(Northwest corner of building, in enclosed hallway)

Mailbox is in main President’s Office, 101 Jessup Hall

Phone: (319)335-1995

E-mail: thomas-k-dean@uiowa.edu
Office hours: By appointment

Syllabus is online at www.uiowa.edu/~ipops

Course Description

This course will introduce you to the concept of “place” from environmental (natural and built), social, and cultural perspectives. The course is divided into two parts: the general theory and practice of place, and Iowa as place (applying theories and ideas about cultural practices to our location).

“Place studies” is an emerging interdisciplinary area, recognizing the centrality of natural, built, social, and cultural environments in the formation of individual, group, and communal identity, as well as the ways in which human beings interact with the world and the responsibilities incumbent upon them in terms of place. Although “place” is grounded in local geography, it is also the ground from which humans connect with virtually everything else. Lawrence Buell in Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and Beyond (2001) describes “tenticular radiations,” that is, relationships that radiate out from specific places in time, space, and imagination—geographical, economic, historical, fictive and virtual, migratory, and so forth. Understanding one’s place, then, involves understanding global ecosystems and economics just as much as the local landscape and community history. The excitement and innovation of place studies flow from the interactions and interconnections between these seemingly disparate elements, as well as the new elicited understandings about humanity and the environments in which it exists.

Required Texts (available at Prairie Lights Bookstore, 15 S. Dubuque St.)

LifePlace: Bioregional Thought and Practice, Robert L. Thayer, Jr. (University of

California Press, 2003)

Place: A Short Introduction, Tim Creswell (Blackwell Publishers, 2004)

Living with Topsoil: Tending Spirits, Cherishing Land (Ice Cube Press, 2004)

Coursepack, available at Zephyr Copies, 124 E. Washington St.

Additional handouts and online materials

Grading and Course Expectations

My presumption is that you are here to learn, and learning requires, especially in a discussion-oriented course, consistent class attendance, adequate preparation of course readings and other materials, active and constructive participation, and completion of writing assignments on deadline. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences course guidelines state that for each semester hour credit in the course, students should expect to spend at least two hours per week preparing for class sessions; for this course, then, we presume an average of six hours of outside preparation on average per week.

Grading will be based on these assignments:

4 short (2-3 page) essays that integrate course materials (40% total; 10% each)

2 short (4-page) writing assignments that apply course materials and concepts to

personal experience (40% total; 20% each)

Attendance and Preparation (based on daily in-class short writing) (20%)

I set high standards for you, and I presume you do so for yourself. Letter grades mean the following: A for exceptional work, B for very good, C for acceptable, D for unacceptable but passing, F for failing.

I grade students individually (not on a curve) based on historical performance of students in my experience. For your information, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recommends the following grade distributions (in percentages) for this level course:

A: 15%, B: 34%, C: 40%, D: 8%, F: 3%, Average 2.50

Course Policies

E-mail and computer access: For purposes of class communication and fulfillment of assignments, you'll need an e-mail account and regular access to a computer.

Attendance: I presume you will be here at every class meeting. There are no “excused” or “unexcused” absences for this course. If your attendance becomes problematic for a legitimate reason (illness, family emergency, etc.), please let me know as soon as possible so that we can make appropriate arrangements for any makeup work.

Class decorum: I work to create a positive, affirming, comfortable, challenging, and open atmosphere in the classroom. I appreciate your efforts to do the same. The best learning comes about from disagreement and debate; at the same time, class discussion must remain civil and respectful. I highly discourage late arrival and early departure from class, as they are disruptive. Please turn off cell phones before class starts. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences classroom environment policies are available online at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/ix.shtml.

Deadlines: Deadlines are deadlines. If you anticipate a serious problem, please alert me before an assignment is due, or as soon as possible after an emergency.

Unethical conduct: Plagiarism (i.e., expropriating the words and ideas of others and passing them off as one's own) and cheating of any sort are grounds for a failing grade in the course. Under University guidelines, plagiarism may lead to expulsion. More details are outlined in College of Liberal Arts and Sciences policies at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/ix.shtml.

Special accommodations: Special academic arrangements for students with disabilities may be facilitated by Student Disability Services, lower level of Burge Hall, tel. 335-1462, sds-information@uiowa.edu. If you feel you need special accommodations for any aspects of the course, please speak with me as early in the semester as possible.

Concerns: Please contact me by e-mail, by phone, or in person with any questions or concerns. University protocol calls for any concerns to be addressed to the instructors first before any higher authorities are consulted. Formal College of Liberal Arts and Sciences procedures for student complaints are available online at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/ix.shtml. The Leisure Studies Academic Coordinator (DEO) is Professor Ken Mobily, 408 Jefferson Building, 335-0172. The DEO of the Literature, Science, and the Arts Program and Director of the Division of Interdisciplinary Programs is Lauren Rabinovitz, 210 Jefferson Building, 335-3630.

Course Calendar

Please note: The course calendar will be modified as necessary as the semester progresses. It is your responsibility to keep abreast of calendar changes via class announcements and online changes. If you are absent on a day a reading handout is provided for a future class session, you are still responsible for acquiring the handout and preparing the reading on time.

Wed, Jan 23 – Welcome and introduction to the course

PART I – GENERAL THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PLACE

Mon, Jan 28 – Lawrence Buell, “The Place of Place,” from Writing for an Endangered World, coursepack

Wed, Jan 30 – Robert Thayer, Jr., LifePlace: A Short Introduction

Preface through Chapter 4, pp. xiii-89

Mon, Feb 4 – Thayer, LifePlace, Chapters 5-8, pp. 90-230

Integration Paper #1

One of the important premises of Robert Thayer, Jr.’s LifePlace: Bioregional Thought and Practice is that the question “Where am I?” is just as important a life question as “Who am I?” and “What should I do?” In other words, place is just as important as—and is interrelated with—identity and action. Discuss why Thayer thinks place is so important and some specific ways in which we should practice creating a “life place.” Include some discussion (comparison and/or contrast) of Lawrence Buell’s “Five Dimensions of Place-Connectedness.”

The goal of this paper is for you to integrate the material of the course so far--to connect the ideas into a coherent whole, as well as to explore the differences in thought. You are not required to come up with an independent, original thesis about the topic. (You can if you would like, though.) Do keep your argument cohesive, coherent, and focused, however. The goal is to integrate ideas, not merely to list them.

Length: 2-3 double spaced pages (if you really want to go longer, you can)

Due Date: Wednesday, February 13, beginning of the hour.

Wed, Feb 6 – Class cancelled due to weather

Mon, Feb 11 – Thayer, LifePlace, 9-10, pp. 231-271

Wed, Feb 13 – Civic Engagement

Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social

Capital ” online at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html

Amitai Etzioni, “The Road to the Good Society,” online at

http://www2.gwu.edu/~ccps/etzioni/B329.html

Cornelia Butler Flora and Jan L. Flora, “Creating Social Capital,”

coursepack

INTEGRATION PAPER #1 DUE

Application Paper #1 Assignment

Think about your personal relationship with place, and choose something significant about it in your life, past or present. The significant “something” could be positive or negative. It could be your relationship with a particular location/locale/community/place, or some more general issue in your experience as it relates to place.

After you’ve chosen something specific in your own life to write about and explore, think about the material of the course so far from the beginning of the semester through the “Place and Story” material. Which of the ideas we’ve discussed will help illuminate your understanding about this relationship with place that you’ve chosen? Write an essay that explores how two or three of these ideas particularly help you understand this relationship with place. At least one of the ideas must be from the Thayer book. Make sure that your essay is focused and the ideas are interrelated—avoid a series of “mini-essays” within the larger essay.

Length: Approximately four double-spaced pages (approximately 1000 words)

Due Date: Monday, March 3, beginning of the hour

Mon, Feb 18 – Social Capital and Sustainability (film viewing in class)

Wed, Feb 20 – Civic Engagement

William M. Sullivan, “A Public Philosophy for Civic Culture,”

coursepack

Philip Selznick, “In Search of Community,” coursepack

Mon, Feb 25 – Place and Story

Wendell Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” from What Are People For?, coursepack

Leslie Marmon Silko, “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination,” coursepack

Wed, Feb 27 – Berry and Silko

Mon, Mar 3 – Tim Creswell, Place: A Short Introduction, Chapters 1-2, pp. 1-51

APPLICATION PAPER #1 DUE

Integration Paper #2 Assignment

Tim Creswell in Place: A Short Introduction suggests a very basic definition of “place”: “space invested with meaning” (he adds “in the context of power,” but I don’t believe that’s necessary). Using ideas from the authors Creswell explores and ideas from at least one of our civic engagement writers (Putnam, Etzioni, Flora, Sullivan, Selznick), describe ways in which this definition can be specifically illustrated. Keep in mind you will need to offer some specific discussion of the distinct meanings of “space” and “place.”

If you would like, you can include material from Silko and Berry, though that is not required. Material from Sack is not required, but if you include some good discussion of his ideas, that will be impressive. You are not required to include discussion of Thayer and Buell, and they should not be a major focus in any case, but if there are points from their work you would like to include, you may.

As always, I will be looking for essays that are focused, argumentatively cohesive, clearly expressed, and mechanically clean.

Length: 2-3 double spaced pages (longer is ok)

Due Date: Monday, March 24, beginning of the hour, delivered in person. You can always hand in a paper early if you would like. So if you would like to be done with this before spring break, you are more than welcome to hand it in before you leave.

Wed, Mar 5 – Creswell, Chapter 3, pp. 53-79

Mon, Mar 10 – Creswell, Chapter 4, pp. 81-123

Wed, Mar 12 – Robert David Sack, “Relational Framework,” from Homo Geographicus, coursepack

March 17-21 SPRING BREAK

PART II– IOWA AS PLACE

A – Land and Culture

Mon, Mar 24 – America’s Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie (film viewing in class)

Bill Holm, “Horizontal Grandeur,” online at

www.morris.umn.edu/services/hr/Horizontal%20Grandeur.doc

INTEGRATION PAPER #2 DUE

Wed, Mar 26 – Food, Agriculture, and Place in Iowa Today

Wes Jackson, from Becoming Native to This Place, coursepack

Michael Pollan, “The Vegetable-Industrial Complex,” coursepack

Michael Pollan, “You Are What You Grow,” coursepack

“Home groan: Most of the food Iowans eat isn’t grown here,”

Coursepack

Integration Paper #3 Assignment

As we begin our focus on Iowa and place, we have been talking about changes in the land. Regardless of whether one thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing, there is no argument that Iowa’s native prairie landscape—indeed its ecosystem—has been fundamentally altered by agriculture in the past 150-plus years. We have also examined how these changes in the land affect us environmentally and culturally in our present, the implications for the future, and the possibilities for future change.

Write a paper that explores how the changes in Iowa’s land have made an impact on Iowa as “place.” In order to do this, you will have to specifically talk about what “place” means in your analysis through reference to material of your choice from the first half of the semester. For your discussion of specifics regarding Iowa and the land, you will need to refer to material from at last two of the class periods from March 24 through April 2 (America’s Tallgrass Prairie film, “Holm’s “Horizontal Grandeur,” food readings and discussion, Connie Mutel lecture, and Hamlin Garland readings).

Although you may if you wish, you do not need to take an argumentative position on any of this—as an “integration paper,” I am asking you merely to integrate the material of the course.

Length: 2-3 double-spaced pages

Due Date: Wednesday, April 9. Hard copy due directly from you at the beginning of the class period, unless prior arrangements are made.

Application Paper #2 – Iowa City Place Connection Project

Although most of you are not intending to stay in Iowa City after graduation, much place-based thinking would emphasize that, at this moment, this is indeed “your place,” and it is important that we connect to our places as deeply and as responsibly as we can no matter how long or short our residence may be. In that vein, I am asking you to write a paper that applies some of the ideas about place that we have studied this semester to our local Iowa City-area community. As part of your preparation for the paper, engage in some type of activity that connects you to the community and helps you find out more about the community. As an application paper, this assignment also requires you to specifically apply ideas about the theory of place from the first part of semester to your experience and analysis. If material from our study of Iowa as place from the latter part of the semester would also be pertinent to your paper, you are more than welcome to include it, though that is not required.

The activity possibilities are limited only by your imagination, but here are some suggestions:

Do a little research and find out more about one of your favorite places in Iowa City or a place you’re interested in (e.g., the Iowa City Recreation Center, the Public Library, City Hall, the Pedestrian Mall, City Park, Hickory Hill Park, etc.). Then spend an hour or two in that place, observing it more closely than you usually do. Observe closely what’s there, observe how people use it, talk to people about their experience and relationship with it, etc.
Attend a local arts event—theatre, music, art installation, literary reading, etc. Through some research, find out what you can about the organization sponsoring the event, observe the patrons as much as the event itself, talk with people about their experience, etc.
Interview a person who makes some kind of impact on the community—someone from a nonprofit organization, a City Councilor, a businessperson, a school board member, etc. Find out what s/he does, how s/he sees his/her role in building community and place, what impact s/he has on the community, etc.
Explore the local food culture of the Iowa City area (New Pioneer Co-op, restaurants, CSA’s, farmers’ markets, organizations, etc.). I can help you find specific businesses and organizations.
Do a little research on public transportation in general and/or public transportation in our local communities. Spend an hour or two riding one or more city buses (Iowa City, Coralville, or Cambus, but if you ride only one bus, do not make it Cambus). Think about how public transportation is important to place and community. Observe the community that exists on the bus, as well as what you learn about the community outside the bus’s windows.
Do some research in local history. Resources are available at the State Historical Society of Iowa (Iowa Avenue and Gilbert St.), the Iowa City Public Library, Special Collections of the University Main Library, the Johnson County Historical Society (near the new Marriott in the Iowa River Landing in Coralville).
Take part in a volunteer activity. Think about how what you’re doing is helping to build place and community. Talk to the others involved and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Learn about the organization sponsoring the event.

We will be discussing our papers in class on May 7. I am not asking that you prepare a formal presentation, but I will ask that all students share a bit about their papers.

Length: About four pages (approximately 1000 words)

Due Date: Absolute deadline is beginning of the class, handed in in person, Wednesday, May 7.

Mon, Mar 31 – The History and Current Challenges of Nature in Iowa

Class visit by Connie Mutel, Author of The Emerald Horizon: The

History of Nature in Iowa, and Historian, IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering

B – Iowa Communities, Then and Now

Wed, Apr 2 --The Frontier Community

Hamlin Garland, “Provincialism,” from Crumbling Idols, coursepack

Garland, Boy Life on the Prairie, selections, coursepack

Mon, Apr 7 – The Amana Colonies

Jonathan G. Andelson, “The Community of True Inspiration from

Germany to the Amana Colonies,” coursepack

Class visit by Lanny Haldy, Amana Heritage Society

Wed, Apr 9 – The Meskwaki Settlement

Ray A. Young Bear, Remnants from the First Earth, selections,

coursepack

Ray A. Young Bear, Black Eagle Child: The Facepaint Narratives,

selection, coursepack

INTEGRATION PAPER #3 DUE

Mon, Apr 14 – NO CLASS (Tom is ill)

Integration Paper #4 Assignment

Discuss challenges that Iowa communities face today in terms of “creating place.” There are many, many issues possible within several large categories: economic, cultural, social, and environmental. Given the shortness of the paper assignment, you can focus on one issue or a related few, but do keep in mind that I realize that you cannot possibly cover everything in two or three pages.

I am requiring that you include some discussion of at least one essay in Living with Topsoil , and you also must include some discussion of material from at least one of the following: Hamlin Garland’s Boy Life on the Prairie, the Amana Colonies, the Meskwaki Settlement, and the small town material. As with our other integration papers, you will also need to draw on material from throughout the semester to define what “creating place” means.

Length: 2-3 double-spaced pages

Due Date: Monday, April 28. Hard copy due directly from you at the beginning of the class period, unless prior arrangements are made.

Wed, Apr 16 –Iowa Small Towns: Survival and Revival

"Nurture the revitalization of rural Iowa" (handout package)

"Restaurateurs give tiny Elkader big-city flavor" (handout)

"A happy ending for Laurens, Iowa's little town that could" (handout)

Selections from Riverside article collection at

http://www.dailyiowan.com/media/paper599/sections/20060505RiversideProject.html

(You will probably have to register with the Daily Iowan website, but that just requires you email. Let

me know if this is a problem for you.)

Read: "Rural Riverside throws the dice"

"Big-City Brokers Tip Balance in Riverside Vote"

"Iowa becomes more and more hooked on casino gambling"

"Gambling: Clean fun or addictive disease?"

"Riverside business owners to casino: We'll take anything"

"A blight on the simple life"

"Riverside and Osceola: Twin Cities?"

"Deputies brace for gamblers' descent"

"From trains to starships to a casino--Riverside's legacy"

"School officials downplay casino's impact"

"David vs. Goliath: Riverside homeowners fight casino developers"

"Riverside elders await casino"

Familiarize yourself a bit with these community vitality programs:

Main Street Iowa: http://www.iowalifechanging.com/community/mainstreetiowa/

Iowa Great Places: http://www.state.ia.us/government/dca/greatplaces/

Vision Iowa: http://www.visioniowa.org/

Community Vitality Center: http://www.cvcia.org/

C – Cultural Expressions of Iowa

Mon, Apr 21 – Literary Expressions of Iowa as Place

Living with Topsoil, pp. 9-50

Wed, Apr 23 – Living with Topsoil, pp. 51-87

Mon, Apr 28 – Iowa in Art

INTEGRATION PAPER #4 DUE

Wed, Apr 30 – Iowa in Film

Mon, May 5 – Iowa in Film

D – Iowa City as Place

Wed, May 7 – Discussion of Application Papers

Fri, May 9 - FINAL DUE DATE FOR APPLICATION PAPER #2 (5:00 p.m.)

You can hand in your paper to me:

1) At my office, 230 Jessup Hall,

2) In my mailbox, 101 Jessup Hall, or

3) By e-mail (Word attachment) at thomas-k-dean@uiowa.edu.

Incredibly important note: If you submit your paper to me by e-mail, I will acknowledge receipt of it as soon as possible (sometime that day) with an e-mail reply. Please check your e-mail by the end of the day you turn your paper in to make sure you have received an acknowledgement e-mail from me. If you do not receive an acknowledgement e-mail from me, it is your responsibility to contact me immediately to re-send your paper or make other arrangements. I will not accept any paper under any circumstances after Friday, May 9.

FINAL EXAM PERIOD – Friday, May 16, 12:00 noon-1:30 p.m.-- I will be available in my office (230 Jessup Hall) for questions or paper pick-up.