assignment for monday, march 31

street art

find some public art/street art and spend some time looking at it, and the surrounding neighborhood.  write a short essay about the art, as well as the neighborhood. what is the art communicating?  how does the art seem to fit into the surrounding neighborhood?  is it working with or against the identity of the neighborhood?   explain.  discuss the street art in the context of the banksy film and or the article about chicano murals.  

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assignment for april 2

mapping your neighborhood and another

for this assignment, you will need to walk and map your own neighborhood, and another, unfamiliar neighborhood.  as you walk, you should be taking notes for both a map and an eventual longer piece which will explore your own relationship to place/space.

-begin by walking the perimeter of what you define as your neighborhood.  walk to the limits in every direction, and notice what, exactly, demarcates the edges of your neighborhood.  is it a physical change, an emotional one, both?

-walk at least 2 blocks (or their equivalent) past what you think of as the edge of your neighborhood.  notice your responses.  how/why do things feel different in this area?  

-identify any particular ideas you have about any aspect of your neighborhood as you walk along.  for instance, the house with the tall grass, that everyone from the neighborhood stays away from, or the house with the barking dogs, or the house that always leaves their trash cans out.  try to identify ways that you think about the people who represent a departure from the neighborhood norms, and from this thinking, develop an idea of what the norm is for your neighborhood.  once you have figured out your neighborhood norms, incorporate them into a key for your map, and make sure your map addresses the specifics if which houses/streets are seen as fitting the norm.

-- try to infer things about the history of the neighborhood from your walk through it.  

-as you walk both neighborhoods, make note of things like race, gender, age, social class, religion.  how do these demographics affect the way you see both neighborhoods, and their  boundaries?

--notice the art in both neighborhoods.  if there is none, mark its absence somehow on your map.  if there is art, make sure you include it on your map.

--notice the presence of absence of things like trees, fences, grocery stores, bodegas, liquor stores, and any other features of the neighborhood that distinguish it as a neighborhood.

Upcoming Assignments

For Monday, March 24:  Lopez:  "Caring for the Woods" (p.277)

Davis:  "Fortress Los Angeles:  the Militarization of Urban Space (p.287)

For Wednesday, March 26:  Cockcraft and Barnet-Sanchez: Signs from the Heart:  California Chicano Murals (p.303); Visual Essay, Banksy -- "The Most Honest Artform Available" (p.310)

For Monday, March 31:  walking tour of your neighborhood and another.  Maps

For Wednesday, April 2:  Interviews

For Monday April 7:  place essays due

Assignment for Wednesday March 19

Read the article entitled "Black Men and  Public Space", by Brent Staples http://themes2014.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/7/1/19711205/unjust_judgments.pdf

and Tina Ansa's, "the Center of the Universe" in Chapter 6 of  Reading Culture 

Write a short comparison (1-2 pages) of the different ways that each conceptualizes space in terms of its relationship to African-American identity. 

Today's class is cancelled (March 5)

I am still sick, so I am cancelling today's class.  The essay assignment is described below.  It is due the Monday after break -- March 17.  Also, this assignment must be handed in as a paper document.  It must be done on a computer -- NOT HANDWRITTEN -- and printed out before class.  

ESSAY

For this assignment, I would like you to expand the brief writing I had you do on your faces into a full-scale essay which deals with your face/body, broken down into parts.  You may pick any of the parts I already had you write about -- eyes, mouth, hair, hands, nose, skin -- but you can also add other body parts if you would like.  You must deal with at least 5 different parts, and look at each from the vantage point of personal, cultural/historical and media-influenced.  When we talk about media-influenced, it can be anything from specific ads that tell you how these parts of your body should look, and what you have to do to achieve that look, to more subtle ideas about race, ethnicity and cultural expectations for beauty.  The goal here is to really think about how the media -- broadly defined -- influences the way we shape our ideas of self.

I would really like you to explore creative ways to think about and write these essays, beyond your own comfort zones.  Try to loosen yourself from the kind of writing that yells "ASSIGNMENT", and see where you might land.