Suggested Readings/Urban Studies-Reading the City

Dear Group,
As a follow-up to today's class, some recommended readings:

1) Lynch - A Walk Around the Block
2) Zeisel - Inquiry by Design
3) Jacobs - Looking at Cities, part 1 and part 2

These are readings on urban studies research, basically "how to read a city as text". These are not required readings, but highly recommended to prepare you for your explorations in Berlin. If you do read one (or all!), please post a blog comment for next week, i.e. a review of the reading. This "review" can replace the "reaction to composition" that we have listed on the syllabus for next week. Also, I forgot about the urban studies assignment listed on the syllabus (oops!). The assignment for this long weekend is to "be observant, be aware of your surroundings, take notice of the details, see your environment with fresh eyes. Prepare for Berlin and read your surroundings as a text!" As always, feel free to blog any observations.

Next week, 5/29, our rescheduled guest speaker, Sam Lim, will give you a preview of sites in Berlin using Google Earth (and an introduction to the Google Earth tool which you might find useful for your projects). Also, Sam will discuss his research in Berlin last summer, which focused on Youth Culture.

You will also have some time in class next week to work on your project proposals and on your research schedules, i.e. a tentative daily plan for your research activities in Berlin. This is not set in stone, it is just to get you thinking about a plan of action. In preparation, I would suggest drafting your "research question" and at the same time keep asking "Why is this question of interest to me?"and "What do I want to learn/discover"? Please bring your guidebook "TIME OUT, BERLIN!" to class next week. It will be useful as you work on your summer schedules. During the summer you will have daily "research/exploration" time, so you should plan on scheduling research activities/city exploration for a portion of each day while you are in Berlin.

Finally, this article THE SOMETHING WE CAN DO should help you to put your exploratory research into context...it's a good read. It's about doing the good work of public scholarship (what you all will be doing in Berlin). Here's a quote from the article "More knowledge is always better. Even still, the best public scholarship is about more than the imparting of knowledge; it’s also about providing hope, even inspiration. Hope is a word that is almost entirely absent from the academic lexicon. Why? Because to talk of hope suggests that we might care, that we might be genuinely invested in the material that we research and teach about. Public scholarship and hope go hand in hand. When scholars highlight opportunities for social change, we offer hope. When scholars help people to negotiate systems in ways that more fully honor their humanity, we offer hope. When scholars provide tools that allow people to take greater control over personal and cultural choices, we offer hope. And when scholars drop our detachment and adopt an ethic of engagement, we offer hope. It is this emphasis—on the belief that together we can build a better world, a more perfect union of humanity—that drives me toward public scholarship." Thanks to Clifford for recommending this article.

That's all for now. Remember, I will be out next week, but back on June 2. Have a nice holiday weekend!

Julie