This class will familiarize you with issues influencing change and development in several Chicago communities, most particularly the neighborhoods of Uptown and Lincoln Park. We will explore the possibilities of visually documenting the rich cultural and social fabric of changing community life, and through this process, come to understand some contemporary issues affecting Chicago and other major cities. The course is designed to explore the diverse neighborhoods of Chicago as particular sites of public history and shared community memory. We will examine the diverse community contexts, the physical and social property of buildings, neighborhoods, places of work, leisure and worship. The course combines social and architectural history to interpret the social, aesthetic and cultural meanings of ordinary places in Chicago.
Field trips are an important component of the course.
Each student is expected to develop skills on the computer as part of the requirement of the course. All students are required to develop a web based individual project on the Power of Ordinary Places in Chicago. This course will examine how ordinary people, not professional writers or teachers, come to know Chicago and adjust to living here by writing. You will experience this subculture through trips to poetry slams, tutoring sessions in literacy centers, contacts with intensive journal-keepers, and discussions with members of the Teen Street Theater and Street Level Video. Ideally, these questions will awaken you to the creative process, encouraging you to explore, invent and draw your own stories from Chicago.