Monthly Archives: January 2016

Cabbagetown: Annotated Bibliography.

Annotated Bibliography

 

Hannah, Gina. “Cabbagetown, Atlanta: What It’s Like to Live Here.” GAC. Great American Country. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.

 

 

Gina Hannah, Great American Country writer, writes about the rich southern Appalachian history that makes up the foundation of Cabbagetown District, Atlanta in the name of her article titled: Cabbagetown, Atlanta: What its Like To Live Here. Hannah mostly utilizes the primary source by using the dérive form of collecting information about a place and sharing it with the world by going to the place itself with the purpose of sharing her experiences of the town. The purpose of this article is to describe Cabbagetown District Georgia, and encourage prospective travelers to visit the area. The prospective travelers who are considering visiting Cabbagetown; make up the intended audience. This article proves to be useful because it describes Cabbagetown, Georgia in a positive light, encouraging and resulting in an influx of tourists.

 

Some Summarizing Stuff: Not Enough Space: A Look at Nessarova Piece.

Tapestry of Space: Domestic Architecture and Underground Communities in Margaret Morton’s Photography of a Forgotten New York written by Irina Nessarova from Illinois State University is a secondary source accounting on Margaret Morton’s works: The Tunnel: The Underground Homeless of New York City and Fragile Dwelling, both of which capture and explore the realities of homelessness in the United States inner city, specifically New York.

Nessarova explains how “homelessness” as we know it is not truly the “absence of a home” but in actuality “the absence of a stable home.” This distinction is key because homemaking is a huge part of the human identity, and because of this homeless are as much apart of homemaking as those who live in an apartment, condo or even a mansion. Homeless people build/make homes out of the discarded materials and the abandoned places where other members of society are not. This is a prime example of the homeless identity. However because of restrictive laws about homelessness in the inner cities of New York (such as closing off the tunnels in which many homeless New Yorkers sought shelter as captured by Morton) society is further perpetuating its fear of poverty and taking away a crucial part of the human identity (dehumanizing) from the homeless: a solid, identifiable, stable home.

In exploration of Margaret Morton’s means of conveying the dehumanization and realities of homelessness in inner city New York, one has to consider the reality of humanity at the time. While Morton was a derive artist, meaning she set out with a purpose when she captured her art and told the stories of those homeless on the streets of New York, she set out to show the realities of homelessness- an ugly an widely ignored issue- in a world where mass media reigned over what people saw and accepted. Morton sought to use her work as an anti-capitalist backdrop to show the people what they refused to see. As an international situationist using derive form of “understanding the environments psychological impact” Morton was able to see directly how the environment affected her even as someone merely passing through it and attempting to capture its truth. This along with interviewing the members of the communities themselves really cemented her ability to accurately convey the effects of the environment on the daily civilian. Another form of capturing the environment around oneself is flaneur where one loses themselves in the environment that they are observing. This form of field work is very hard to do, but this allows one to not put themselves in the shoes of the homeless who live the tunnels and shanty towns of inner city New York City, but simply capture the picturesque qualities of that reality.

 

 

 

Some Summarizing Stuff: Architectural Exclusion

The Architectural Exclusion piece by Sarah Schindler: Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment was not only deeply insightful and thought provoking, but also maddening. In this piece Schindler breaks down exactly what architectural exclusion is and how architecture is used to alter the behavior and abilities of the people within or surrounded by said architecture, and even how it is purposely constructed to exclude.

Schindler describes architectural exclusion as “a man made built environment with specific features that make it difficult for certain individuals- usually poor people and people of color- to access certain places”. Some of these exclusionary architectural pieces are obvious, such as walls or gates, others such as bus stops and traffic signs are more insidious in their purpose of denying unwanted people into suburbia or other places of higher socioeconomic status. Lawmakers and civil activists have catalyzed progressive change in acts of exclusion towards minorities or those living in poverty such as rezoning, however when it comes to architectural exclusion many things such as lack of streets signs to allow for people who are unfamiliar with the area (people of lower socioeconomic status who couldn’t afford to live there) to be able to get around efficiently, thus discouraging people who don’t live in the neighborhood to travel in that area.

Another example of architectural exclusion given by the author is the placement of bus and train stops. It doesn’t usually come to the attention of the minds of people who don’t use public transportation, however to those who utilize public transportation, they are affected directly by the decision made by suburban predominantly white areas to blocked transportation stops from their areas. This keeps out undesirable people from living, visiting and working in their areas. This form of exclusion not only acts to keep people of lower socioeconomic out, but also inhibits them from acquiring higher paying jobs if not jobs at all. Schindler provides an example of how this form of built environment has even proved to be dangerous for those trying to escape the confines of the environment they live in. Cynthia Wiggins, a 17-year-old girl African American girl had to walk across a 7 lane highway to walk to work, and got struck and died. She was on her way to work at Walden Galleria, a suburban upscale mall. She was forced to cross the highway every time on her way to work because her bus route did not cross Walden Avenue, a street that split two cities. Transit stops also prevent those in a lower socioeconomic place from getting jobs in that they can’t get to the jobs. However money isn’t the problem. Some areas with higher socioeconomic stature will readily raise the minimum wage to encourage older people and teenagers already living in the area to work. Further proving the blocking of transit is really to architecturally exclude.

This article really shocked me in that our society has even more insidious ways of enforcing institutionalized racism and peniaphobia. Schindlers piece on architectural exclusion breaks down the many ways that we do that, and reveals how subconscious America’s exclusion of those who are not of a certain culture or socioeconomic stature really is.
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/architectural-exclusion

Syllabus and Course Info Take Home Quiz

Questions:
What are the major projects? In a bulleted list, provide links to the project descriptions for each of them.

Reading Summaries: http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#readingsummaries

Annotated Bibliographies:http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#readingsummaries|2||annotatedbibs|0

Built Environment Descriptions: http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#bedescriptions|0

Built Environment Analysis: http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#beanalysis|0

Participation: http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#beanalysis|0||participation|0

Final Website: http://spaceplacerhet.pdarrington.net/projects-2/#beanalysis|0||participation|0||finalwebsite|0
How will your final grade be calculated?

You will earn points for just about everything you do in this course–attending class, completing in-class work, studying, major projects, contributing material to our collaborative archive about the built environment in Atlanta, etc., etc. You can also lose points for missing class, failing to turn in a project on time, coming to class unprepared, etc., etc. At the end of the course, if you have completed all four of the major projects (reading summaries, annotated bibliography, built environment descriptions, and built environment analysis), your letter grade will be assigned based on the points you’ve earned.

What is the “submission form” and how do you use it?

we use this form to submit pretty much everything for which you’d like to earn points–study group reflections, major project drafts, contributions to our Atlanta built environment archive, etc. We will keep track of when you come to see us during office hours for individual or group conferences and when you complete exercises in Writer’s Help.

Embed the form below your answer (hint: Google “embed Google form” to find out how).
Embed the course calendar and weekly overview below this question.

Found how to do it, however there is no drop down menu at the top of the form?
Where on the course website can you find an overview of what’s due and the readings for each  unit?

The week to week overviews include a weekly unit based overview.

Under the course overview and syllabus tab.

The Unit Overviews within the week by week overviews.
What is the best way to see an overview of what’s due each week?

Weekly overview (see syllabus tab)

Detailed Course Overview with a week by week

What is the attendance policy?

You earn points for coming to class and lose points for unexcused absences. Students in the M/W F2F section earn 20 points for coming to class, and lose 20 points for each absence. Students in the hybrid sections earn 40 points for coming to class, and lose 40 points for each absence. Arriving to class late will result in a deduction of 10-20 points. In this course, students are expected to adhere to the Georgia State University student code of conduct.

What are my office hours, and how do you make an appointment to see me outside of class?

Office hours: Tuesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m., and by appointment; I’m able to meet via WebEx or Google Hangout if you can not be on campus Course Description Everything that is composed contains information.

How do you earn participation credit? Provide a link to the instructions/guidelines for particiption.
How many points can you earn by participating in or organizing a study group session?
How can you be assured of earning an “A” in this course?

2500 points
What are the minimum requirements for earning a passing grade of “C”?

1475 Points

What do you do if you’re not sure how to document your participation in order to earn points?

Contact Mrs. A

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