Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
OVERVIEW ENV DES 101A AND ENV DES 101B.
In these two classes students entertain the role of objects, inhabitable spaces and buildings as
emblematic of the values one imputes to them. ("that house" / "mother's house"; "this tea cup" / "a
family treasure" / "that bed" / "we slept there ". . . .
The classes are conducted as workshops in which the students' writings serve as the text for
examining the students' weekly, production. The objectives are (1) to improve one's craft by
recognizing the strengths of the personal voice (2) to develop a sensitivity to the importance of the
critic (classmates) as a positive voice in verbally addressing others' work.
In addition to writing, students are asked to include a photograph (personal property, Internet,
Google, etc), not as an illustration but as a provocative image related to either a subtext or serving
the text as an expressive image where words "fail" (the ineffable).
ED 101A (Fall Semester): The writing and reading assignments are based on 3 categories, with 45 prompts, each:
Objects and their Context (Fetish, Dubious Gift, Obsession, Negotiation, Self);
Domestic Space and Occasion (Threshold, Child's Realm, Stair, Heart");
Urban Life and Identity (Dreaming the City, Roaming, Assignation, Alienation, Home Coming.)
Readings are pegged to weekly writing assignments.
Geraldine Brooks, March
Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose
Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana
Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt
Charles Baudelaire, The Parisian Prowler
Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain
Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher
Andre Aciman, False Papers
Hannah Arendt, Illuminations
In ED 101B (Spring Semester): The Notebook : Prompts (14-15) and readings (short fiction)
encourage the individual development of a "story" or "theme" (personal narrative) that is
developed in the process of writing each week.
** The Notebook, Journal, Log, and Diary are various terms for the personal account
kept by authors, architects, and artists, as a first step toward producing a work of
literary, professional or artistic merit. The Notebook emerges overtime in response to a
disciplined approach to writing regularly about an interest. Illustrations highlight and
augment the text.
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
Env Des 101A and Env Des 101B are each open to 12-14 students (principally undergraduates)
from all Departments. As elective courses, each has attracted students from Architecture, Urban
Studies, Landscape Architecture, English, Rhetoric, Film Studies, Performance Art, Geography,
Comp-Lit, Integrative Biology, Mechanical Engineering and others. It is common that students
will take both, if not in series, but during the course of their undergraduate studies. Though
courses may be taken for 2-4 units, the work load is the same. The unit option serves students who
may have limited electives outside of their majors.
Student evaluations for both courses are (satisfyingly) positive. Students take to the narrative
form (as opposed to academic papers) and express satisfaction in the weekly discussions of their
work by classmates. The size of the class (limited to 12-14) and the 3 hour meeting work well
(with my management) to give each students' work a degree of individual attention. Students are
required to see me during my office hours at least 2x during the semester. It is important that we
discuss, one on one, their perceived value of the course and mine of their work.
The format of the classes is based on my experience in teaching architectural design studios in
which the ongoing presentation of each student's work to the class contributes to confidence in
one's own work and trust in classmates (studio environment).
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
Individuals and groups attribute meaning to objects for what they represent, be it a service, a need, an
experience, a relationship, an inexplicable yearning. The time and place associated with an object are
important to its perceived value. Thus, piece by piece, objects big and small, factual, fictional or imagined,
are imbued with meaning that inform one as to who one is and of what one cherishes.
WEEK 1
ASSIGNMENT 1: ESSENTIAL OBJECT
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
PROMPT: The house is burning. . .
DUE, SUNDAY, 5PM –E-Mail Tree
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
Individuals and groups attribute meaning to objects for what they represent, be it a service, a need, an
experience, a relationship, an inexplicable yearning. The time and place associated with an object are
important to its perceived value. Thus, piece by piece, objects big and small, factual, fictional or imagined,
are imbued with meaning that inform one as to who one is and of what one cherishes.
Lennon Frames Bring Big Bids
ASSIGNMENT 2: COVETED OBJECT
Bidding has reached $1.5 million for a pair of John Lennon’s gold wire-rimmed sunglass frames
with curling ear stems, above, the BBC reported. “The interest has been phenomenal,” said John
Warner, the sales director of the online auction house 991.com. “Our phones have been in
meltdown.” Lennon wore the spectacles during the Beatles’ 1966 tour of Japan, where the band
played five dates in the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo but otherwise was isolated for security
reasons at the Tokyo Hilton. During his stay Lennon became friendly with the band’s Japanese
translator, Junishi Yore, and after the final concert they exchanged gifts. Mr. Yore, who later
became a television producer, gave Lennon a set of traditional copper cups; Lennon gave him a
pair of his sunglasses. In a handwritten note from 1984, when he parted with the glasses, Mr. Yore
told how, as a mark of respect, he removed the black lenses on the day Lennon was shot dead in
New York in 1980. Mr. Warner said the sunglass frames came to the auction site from an
American collector. Bidding is open until July 31.
PROMPTS: I must have it! (a first person narrative)
DUE, SUNDAY, 5PM –E-Mail Tree
REQUIRED READING: Saki (H.H. Munro), "The Unbearable Bassington Chapter 06" (handout)
READERS: All narratives are to be read. Come prepared to comment on each, using this outline to
encourage specificity. In class, work from hard copies only. Do not bring laptops.
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
CRITIQUE:
Format
Conforming to instructions (header info, length of text, image)
Grammar (conventional or purposefully abridged)
Text
Beginning and Ending (conventional or purposefully abridged)
Use of the assigned prompt
Use of the assigned image
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization
Authenticity of actors
Place
Relationship between characters and the settings in which they act
As a metaphor for a character's development (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A
Hungry Artist" thwarts temptation by locking himself in a cage)and the relationship
between (among) characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Image
Illustration (now you see it) or subtext (what was not said)
Backstory
Effective use
WEEK 3
Individuals and groups attribute meaning to objects for what they represent, be it a service, a need, an
experience, a relationship, an inexplicable yearning. The time and place associated with an object are
important to its perceived value. Thus, piece by piece, objects big and small, factual, fictional or imagined,
are imbued with meaning that inform one as to who one is and of what one cherishes.
1955. Vincenzo Balocchi. Self-portait.
ASSIGNMENT 3: OBJECT OF OBSESSION
Alinari
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
. . . .Would it not be presumptuous of me if, in order to appear convincingly objective and down-to-earth, I
enumerated for you the main sections or prize pieces of a library, if I presented you with their history or
even their usefulness to a writer? I, for one, have in mind something less obscure, something more
palpable that that; what I'm really concerned with is giving you some insight into the relationship of a book
collector to his possessions, into collecting rather than a collection. If I do this by elaborating on the
various ways of acquiring books, this is something entirely arbitrary. This or any other procedure is merely
a dam against the spring tide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his
possessions. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of
memories. . . .
Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library", in Hannah Arendt,
Illuminations
ed.,
PROMPT: Object of an obsessive passion. Monologue. 1000 words (prose; addressed to other(s) or to
self; spoken or internal): (The object is inanimate, tangible, man-made.) IMAGE: PASTED INTO THE
TEXT
REQUIRED READING: Walter Benjamin "Unpacking My Library" (handout – to be read before
writing)
Beginnings and endings: Note the strength of the beginning and ending?
Seminal moment: At what point in the story are you most engaged and why?
Element of time: How does the writer handle the element of time? (syntax, structure, other)
Affection: What is the writer's state of mind? How does he convey it?
DUE, SUNDAY 5PM (Format: name, assign #, pages) (Tardy papers may not be accepted)
SEND TO THE LIST –READERS: All narratives are to be read and commented on. In addition, each
writer selects four ("new") specific narratives to discuss in class. Observations are informed by points of
CRITIQUE Annotate your hardcopies for references as you make your remarks in class.
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
Benjamin was born in Berlin on July 15, 1892. He was an unusual figure in 20th century thought,
considering himself a "Man of Letters" and a literary critic rather than taking the more illustrious title of
philosopher. His short career carried him through the ten years leading up to WWII, publishing an essay on
Goethe's Elective Affinities in 1924 that earned him swift recognition. He had received his doctorate in
Switzerland in 1919, but failed to acquire his Habilitation, making it difficult for him to find work well
suited to his abilities. The work he had submitted in 1928 was the only full-length study that he published,
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
The Origins of German Tragic Drama, and it was likely misunderstood by its jurors, for it prominently
contained a complex network of appropriated quotations. In the period between 1925 and 1933 Benjamin
eked out a living as a literary critic and translator, as a freelance writer for journals and magazines, meeting
a number of left-wing intellectuals. He befriended Bertolt Brecht, an ally who shared with Benjamin both
an affinity with the Left, and a suspicion of dialectics (the dominant concept in use at the time). When the
Nazi's took office in 1933, Benjamin fled to Paris, maintaining work as a writer for the Institute for Social
Research based in Frankfurt. Paris was an inspiration for Benjamin, and it was during this period that he
wrote some of his most influential essays and articles for literary journals, including an ambitious (and
hence, unfinished) reading of Baudelaire's Arcades Project in the context of nineteenth-century capitalism.
In 1939 the Nazi's drew ever closer to the capital city, and ironically, Benjamin decided to flee Paris and
head to Meaux, where Nazi troops were stationed; likely the most dangerous place to be in France during
the early period of the occupation. Benjamin was forced to continue running, heading for a well-known
passage between France and Spain, with arranged plans to catch a boat to the US. Due to a cardiac
condition, the mountain pass between France and Spain was very difficult for Benjamin to travel. Upon
learning that he required a visa to be able to leave France, Benjamin despaired and took his own life at the
age of 48.
Benjamin kept a rather secretive existence, and the materials left behind are fragmentary, leaving scholars,
translators and historians to argue over the nature of his thoughts and texts. Manuscripts have been lost, and
his rather turbulent and short life was full of personal and political incompatibilities, leaving much about
his life open to debate. Hannah Arendt's introduction in Illuminations gives us some insight into his
character, for they were friends in Paris shortly before the German occupation. She is also the editor of the
English translation of Illuminations (1968).
Benjamin's legacy was primarily in the hands of Theodor Adorno and Gershon Scholem, who managed to
revive interest in his work after the war. Collections of his essays began to be published, the major works of
which include Illuminations (1968), The Origin of German Drama (1977), Reflections (1978), Moscow
Diary (1986), and The Arcades Project (1999). This posthumous and delayed output of his works did not
deter their potency, indeed, his thoughts and philosophical reflections have had a major impact on theorists
in literature, philosophy, communications and technology, cultural studies, post-colonial theories,
feminism, and historical studies, as well as theories in the contemporary arts. His rather unusual emphasis
on Marx (the avoidance of dialectics in Marx), Judaic notions of Messianic time, along with his attempts to
move away from metaphysics, have insured his continuing relevance to thought today. The unique nature
of his thought is evident in the essay, Goethe's Elective Affinities, as well as those of Illuminations.
History, modernity, the rise of mass culture in an interrelation of art and technology, as well as nineteenth
and twentieth-century literature were particular interests for Benjamin. Due to his philosophies on history
and the nature of translation and its effects on languages, time and literature, Benjamin's writings often
shocked his contemporaries. Of note is his criticism of linear, causal notions of history preferring the
metaphor of a constellation to describe a spatial relation of events/contexts in which the historian should
relate the present to the past. Noting further on the relationship of life to history, it is for Benjamin
significant that each individual being have a history of its own, therefore having a life of its own, as
opposed to each being merely a setting for history. The afterlife of each being is incumbent upon its own
striving against its normalization in modern life. That which attests to the confines, the potentialities and
possible futuricity of its own status as an historic being experiences something of its life, an imaginary not
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
formed in an image of the "natural" or "nature". Such testimonies of living beings open the possibility of
translation, identification, and recognition as historical beings in an undetermined future — they have an
afterlife.
Benjamin was thus interested in key figures involved in literature and poetry of the time. He wrote analyses
on Hölderlin, Baudelaire, Kafka and Brecht. He criticized their works not in the ordinary sense of
endorsement of ideal (modernist) examples of contemporary art works, but for the very reason of liberating
the works from the specificity of the context for future purposes, maintaining what he saw as alive in them
in the present. This he saw as a part of his duty as a literary critic.
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is arguably the most influential of Benjamin's
essays, in which he locates a shift in the status of traditional art as technical means of reproduction such as
photography and film begin to dominate the imagination of a mass public. Benjamin defines the
characteristic of manual production of the traditional artwork as a historical process unique to the original
object, manifest in the object as its "aura." The subsequent proliferations of technical reproductions of a
traditional artwork bear only an imagistic similitude to the original, lacking the "aura" and therefore any
relation to the actual historical dimension thereof. The gradual preference of technical media by the mass
public signifies for Benjamin both a radical shift in the arts to the political in the Marxist sense, although
this shift in the status of art to the political also allows aesthetic contemplation to become dissociated from
the properly lived experience of the autonomous individual. The viewer of art, from the detached position
of the technical media itself, becomes a disinterested critic, evaluating the reproduced object merely in
terms of its presentability; that it takes place. Hence, Benjamin notes the various attempts by political
parties, namely the Fascists whom Benjamin feared and despised, to aestheticize politics, or as he put it:
"All efforts to render politics aesthetic leads to one thing: war." There are many varied readings of this text,
ranging from the democratic and revolutionary Marxist assertions, to the more complex analysis of the
specular and spectacular, as well as the totalizing nature of media mass culture by figures such as Adorno
and Horkheimer, Debord, McLuhan, and more recently, Agamben. Indicative of such conflicting debates is
the recent translation of the actual title of the work, which has been read, "The Work of Art in the Age of
Technical Reproduction."
To be sure, Benjamin left a complex body of work that surpasses the limits of the context of its own
writing, that was both prophetic and timely, neither strictly academic nor mere opinion, but an enigma
much like his own life as a writer, a critic, a Jew, and an "Homme des Lettres."
CRITIQUE:
Format
Conforming to instructions (header info, length of text, image)
Grammar (conventional or purposefully abridged)
Text
Beginning and Ending (conventional or purposefully abridged)
Use of the assigned prompt
Use of the assigned image
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
Authenticity of actors
Place
Relationship between characters and the settings in which they act
As a metaphor for a character's development (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A
Hungry Artist" thwarts temptation by locking himself in a cage)and the relationship
between (among) characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Image
Illustration (now you see it) or subtext (what was not said)
Backstory
Effective use
WEEK 4 DUBIOUS GIFT
READ BEFORE WRITING:
Haruki Murakami, "Lederhosen" in The Elephant Vanishes (1993) handout
PROMPT: Dubious Gift
TEXT AND IMAGE: 1,000 words, provocative image
PRESENTATION FORMAT
Header: Name, assignment number, pages are numbered.
WRITING: Close attention to
1)
Addressing the Prompt
2)
3)
4)
5)
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization; Authenticity of actors
Place/Setting
Strengthening the relationship between characters and the settings in which they act
As a metaphor for a character's personality (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A Hungry
Artist" thwarts temptation by locking himself in a cage) and/or the relationship between (among)
characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Image as Illustration or as Subtext or Backstory
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
6)
7)
Structure
Beginning and Ending
Critical moment
Readers' affection
CRITIQUE: Each writer selects four narratives to discuss in class.
DUE: Sunday, September 13, 5pm.
SEND:
WEEK 5
He was waiting for Sissy Miler. He had asked her to come; he owed her, he felt, after all the years
she had been with them, this token of consideration. Yes, he went on, as he sat there waiting, it was strange
that Angela had left everything in such order. Every friend had been let some little token of her affection.
Every ring, every necklace, every little Chinese box—she had a passion for little boxes—had a name on it.
And each had some memory for him. This he had given her; this—the enamel dolphin with the ruby eyes—
she had pounced upon one day in a back street in Venice. He could remember her little cry of delight. To
him, of course, she had left nothing in particular, unless it were her diary . . . .
Virginia Woolf, "The Legacy" (1940)
ASSIGNMENT 5: OBJECT OF REVELATION (1,000 wds + photo)
PROMPT: seeing is believing
Readers
Writers
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
Focus on 4 strengths and 4 missed opportunities: place, character, story, best lines,
etc.
WEEK 6
WEEK 6
Threshold: Technically, the piece of timber or stone that lies below the opening of a door which has to be
crossed upon entering—or upon leaving—a house. Figuratively, however, that built element framing a
passage way between two adjacent spaces. The passage itself has meaning—as all acts do—for in passing
through, one carries an agenda, expectations, and attendant feelings. The transition from one space to the
other may be for practical purposes but may also signify a passage of the self from one state of being to
another; an initiation; from innocence to knowledge; from insecurity to security; from being nobody to
being a member of the family.
ASSIGNMENT 6: THRESHOLD: SHORT FICTION
PROMPT: "welcoming the bride" as anticipated by 2 of the individuals at the threshold (image).
Each protagonist's story is 500 -600 words.
DUE, SUNDAY, , 5pm
REQUIRED READING: Assign's 5 and 6: "Girl With Lizard" Bernhard Schlink, 2002
SEND TO THE LIST –READERS: All narratives are to be read and commented on in class. In addition,
each is assigned two for close reading: a careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text placing
great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and
the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read. Select the paragraph in which the writer
reveals her/his interpretation of the prompt or alludes to the subtext.
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
CLOSE READING: ASSIGNED THREE, ADD 2 OF YOUR CHOICE. PRIMARY ISSUE IS VOICE.
HOW IS VOICE DEALT WITH IN TEXT, CHARACTERIZATION, PLACE, ACT, IMAGE, ETC. (SEE
BELOW).
Text
Beginning and Ending. Use of the assigned prompt. Use of the assigned image
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization
Authenticity of actors
Place/Setting
Strengthening the relationship between characters and the settings in which they Act
As a metaphor for a character's personality (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A Hungry
Artist" thwarts temptation locking himself in a cage) and/or the relationship between (among)
characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Image
Illustration / Subtext
Backstory
Technique
WEEK 7
WEEK 7:
Rossellini, Roberto, 1906Voyage to Italy /director and screenwriter: det.: Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders
Viaggio in Italia
1953
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
ASSIGNMENT 7: THE INTIMATE PLACE
PROMPT:
My Darling. . . not possible . . . .
DUE, SUNDAY, 18 October, 5pm
REQUIRED READING: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1899)
SEND TO THE LIST –READERS: All narratives are to be read and commented on in class. In addition,
each is assigned THREE + ONE OF YOUR CHOICE for close reading: a careful, sustained interpretation
of a brief passage of text placing great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to
individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read. Select the
paragraph in which the writer reveals her/his interpretation of the prompt or alludes to the subtext.
CRITIQUE:
Format is Essential: Please check, before sending, that the
Header with Name, Assign #, Pagination is complete.
Text
Beginning and Ending. Use of the prompt. Use of the assigned image
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization
Authenticity of actors
Place/Setting
Strengthening the relationship between characters and the settings in which they act
As a metaphor for a character's personality (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A Hungry
Artist" thwarts temptation by locking himself in a cage) and/or the relationship between (among)
characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Image
Illustration / Subtext
Backstory
Technique
WEEK 8
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
ASSIGNMENT 8: CHILD'S REALM
PROMPT:
Memorable? . . .definitely . . . it was my 4 th birthday
DUE, SUNDAY, 25 October, 5pm
REQUIRED READING: A close reading of two paragraphs of two your assigned writers' work. Come
prepared to lead the reading in class.
CLOSE READING: a careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text placing great emphasis on
the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which
sentences and ideas unfold as they are read. Select the paragraph in which the writer reveals her/his
interpretation of the prompt or alludes to the subtext.
CRITIQUE:
Format is Essential: Please check, before sending, that the
Header with Name, Assign #, Pagination is complete.
Text
Beginning and Ending. Use of the prompt. Use of the assigned image
Use of the assigned reading
Characterization
Authenticity of actors
Place/Setting
Strengthening the relationship between characters and the settings in which they act
As a metaphor for a character's personality (the vertiginous man lives in a cellar; "A Hungry
Artist" thwarts temptation by locking himself in a cage) and/or the relationship between (among)
characters.
As subtext ( political or social comment);
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
1/24
Image
Illustration / Subtext
Backstory
Technique
Family is a Western term used to denote a domestic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_%28sociology%29group of people, or a number of
domestic groups linked through descent (demonstrated or stipulated) from a common ancestor,
marriage or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoptionadoption. A family may also be defined
specifically as a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, and co-residence. Although
the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by blood, many anthropologists argue
that the notion of "blood" must be understood metaphorically; some argue that there are many
non-Western societies where family is understood through other concepts rather than "blood"
WEEK 9
Andrew Kertesz
Chez Mondrian
Paris, 1926
ASSIGNMENT 9: FAMILY, PLACE, AND OCCASION: THE STAIR (1,000 wds + photo)
An old man was dozing in a great hooded chair in the hall. He lit a candle in the office and went
before them to the stairs. They followed him in silence, their feet falling in soft thuds on the thickly
carpeted stairs. She mounted the stairs behind the porter, her head bowed in the ascent, her frail shoulders
curved as with a burden, her skirt girt tightly about her. He could have flung his arms about her hips and
held her still for his arms were trembling with desire to seize her and only the stress of his nails against the
palms of his hands held the wild impulse of his body in check. The porter halted on the stairs to settle his
guttering candle. They halted too on the steps below him. In the silence Gabriel could hear the falling of
the molten wax into the tray and the thumping of his own heart against his ribs. . . .Joyce, "The Dead",
Dubliners (1914)
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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PROMPT: stair as social occasion
REQUIRED READINGS: James Joyce, "The Dead" (handout)
The story is set in a family house. The entrance to the house is at the street level. Note how Joyce
distributes the evening's celebratory events between spaces downstairs and upstairs in order to
privilege the role of the stair in the narrative.
DUE SUNDAY - Send to the list.
READ ALL WRITERS; FOCUS ON THOSE ASSIGNED
PREPARE A CONCISE RECITATION OF THE STORY.
Specify where text develops place, characters, ending.
What is particular about your writers' voice?
CLOSE READING OF ONE WRITER : LANGUAGE INDICATIVE OF VOICE
ASSIGNMENT 10: THE HEART OF THE HOUSE
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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1893. Alinari
No social group—whether a family, a work group, or a school group—can
survive without constant informal con-tact among its members.
Any building which houses a social group supports this kind of contact by providing
common areas. The form and location of the common areas is critical. Here is a perfect
example—a description of the family room in a Peruvian worker's house:
For a low-income Peruvian family, the family room is the heart of family life, The
family eat here, they watch TV here, and everyone who comes into the house comes into
this room to say hello to the others, kiss them, shake hands with them, ex -change news.
The same happens when people leave the house.
The family room functions as the heart of the family life by helping to support these
processes. The room is so placed in the house, that people naturally pass through it on
their way into and out of the house. The end where they pass through it allows them to
linger for a fesv moments, without having to pull out a chair to sit down. The TV set is at
the opposite end of the room from this throughway, and a glance at the screen is often
the excuse for a moment ' s further lingering. The part of the room for the TV set is often
darkened; the family room and the TV function just as much during midday as they do at
night.
Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language "Pattern 129: Common Areas at the Heart" (1997)
PROMPT: AFFECTION?
REQUIRED READING: Joyce Carol Oates', We Were The Mulvaneys (1996), is a 450 page family
drama, parced into chapters which are, in places throughout the story, easily read as "short fiction".
"Family Code" is one such chapter. For our purposes, the chapter is instructive in several ways:
emphasis on place (kitchen) and its content, introduction to family members through a
characterization of their inter-relationships. In this fragment of the larger story, the kitchen is what
Christopher Alexander, in A Pattern Language, identifies as one of the "common areas at the heart"
of a family house.
DUE SUNDAY 5PM - Send to the list.
READ ALL WRITERS; FOCUS ON THOSE ASSIGNED
PREPARE A CONCISE RECITATION OF THE STORY.
Specify where text develops place, characters, ending. Note, which is the next writer assigned to you.
What is particular about your writers' voice?
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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WEEK 11
Gilles Post card
ASSIGNMENT 11: DREAMING THE CITY
The Alexandria I knew; that part-Victorian, half-decayed, vestigial nerve center of the British
Empire, exists in memory alone, the way Carthage and Rome and Constantinople exist as vanished cities
only—a city where the dominant languages were English and French, though everyone spoke in a medley
of many more, because the principal languages were really Greek and Italian, and in my immediate world
Ladino (the Spanish of the Jews who fled the Inquisition in the sixteenth century), with broken Arabic
holding everything more or less together. The arrogance of the retired banker, the crafty know-it-all airs
of the small shopkeeper, the ways of Greeks and of Jews, all of these were not necessarily compatible, but
everyone knew who everyone else was, and on Sundays—at the theatre, in restaurants, at the beach, or in
clubs—chances were you sat next to each other and had a good chat. My grandmother knew Greek well
enough to correct native Greeks, she knew every prayer in Latin, and her written French, when she was
vexed, would have made the Duc de Saint-Simon quite nervous.
This is the Alexandria I live with every day, the one I've taken with me, written about, and
ultimately superimposed on other cities . . . . Andre Aciman (will be hounded out on Tuesday)
PROMPT: Scribbled on a post card (1,000 words + a photograph)
READING:
Andre Aciman, "Alexandria: the Capital of Memory", in
False Papers: Essays On Exile And Memory (2001)
DUE: SUNDAY, 5PM.
WEEK 12
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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Robert Doisneau (1912-1994)
Pranksters (Paris)
ASIGNMENT 12 THE CITY AND IDENTITY: FLÂNEUR – THE IDLE STROLLER
The street conducts the flâneur into a vanished time. For him, every street is precipitous. It leads
downward—if not to the mythical Mothers, then into a past that can be all the more spellbinding
because it is not his own, not private. Nevertheless, it always remains the time of a childhood.
But why that of the life he has lived? In the asphalt over which he passes, his steps awaken a
surprising resonance. The gaslight that streams down on the paving stones throws an equivocal
light on his double ground.
Intoxication comes over the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets. With each
step, the walk takes on greater momentum; ever weaker grow the temptations of sops, of bistros,
of smiling women, ever more irresistible the magnetism of the next street corner, of a distant
mass of foliage, of a street name. Then comes hunger. Our man wants nothing to do with the
myriad possibilities offered to sate his appetite. Like an ascetic animal, he flits through unknown
districts—until, utterly exhausted, he stumbles into his room, which receives him coldly and
wears a strange air.
Walter Benjamin, "Flâneur", The Arcades Project (1932/2004) p 416ff
Henry James's first reaction to seeing Rome, at 26, in a letter to his brother William (1869):
Here I am in the Eternal City. . . . I rushed to this hotel. . . and after a wash and a breakfast let
myself loose on the city. From midday to dusk I have been roaming the streets. Que vous en
dirai-je? At last--for the first time--I live! It beats everything: it leaves the Rome of your fancy-your education--nowhere. It makes Venice--Florence--Oxford--London seem like cities of
psteboard. I went reeling and moaning thro' the streets, in a fever of enjoyment. In the course of
four or five hours I traversed the whole of Rome and got a glimpse of everything--the Forum, the
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
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Coliseum (stupendissimo!), the Pantheon, the Capitol, St. Peter's, the Column of Trajan, the
Castel St. Angelo--all the piazzas and ruins and monuments. The effect is something
indescribable. . . . Even if I should leave Rome tonight I should feel that I have caught the keynote
of its operation on the senses. I have looked along the grassy vista of the Appian Way and seen
the topmost stonework of the Coliseum sitting shrouded in the light of Heaven, like the edge of an
Alpine chain. I've trod the Forum and have scaled the Capitol. I've seen the Tiber hurrying
along, as swift and dirty as history! . . . I would give my head to be able to stay three months: it
would be a liberal education. As it is, I shall stay, if possible, simply from week to week.
Letters, ed. Leon Edel (Camridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974), II:159-61.
The building on Bahnhofstrasse is no longer there. I don't know when or why it was torn down. I
was away from my hometown for many years. The new building, which must have been put up in
the seventies or eighties, has five floors plus finished space under the roof, is devoid of balconies
or arched windows, and its smooth façade is an expanse of pale plaster. A plethora of doorbells
indicates a plethora of tiny apartments, with tenants moving in and out as casualy as you would
pick up and return a rented car. There's a computer store on the ground floor where once there
were a pharmacy, a supermarket, and a video store.
The old building was as tall, but with only four floors, a first floor of faceted sandstone
blocks, and above it three floors of brickwork with sandstone arches, balconies, and window
surrounds. Several steps led up to the first floor and the stairwell; they were wide at the bottom,
narrower above, set between walls topped with iron banisters and curving outwards at street
level. The entryway through which the woman had led me to the tap in the courtyard was a side
entrance.
Berhard Schlink The Reader (1995) , pp 6-7
THE CITY AND IDENTITY: FLÂNEUR
PROMPT: "Lost? she/he asked.
REQUIRED IMAGE
TEXT: 1000 words of prose + photo
REQUIRED READING: WALTER BENJAMIN, FLANEUR (HANDOUT)
DUE: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 5PM
READERS: ALL
ASSIGNMENT 13: ASSIGNATION:
The arrangement of a particular time and place
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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Weeks 11 thru 15, prompts based on five themes of personal identity and urban life: Dreaming
(expectations), Flâner (strolling), Assignation (meeting), Alienation (disaffection), Dwelling (affection).
Henri Cartier-Bresson Boulevard Diderot, Paris, 1969
Protesters gathered Monday outside City Hall in Farmers Branch Texas, to object to city ordinances that
would affect illegal immigrants.
For the next few days, the woman was working the early shift. She came home at noon, and I cut my last
class every day so as to be waiting for her on the landing outside her apartment. We showered and made
love, and just before half past one I scrambled into my clothes and ran out the door. Lunch was at onethirty. On Sundays lunch was at noon, but her early shift also started and ended later. . . .
Bernhard Schlink, THE READER
PROMPT: ANXIETY
TEXT: 1000 WORDS (pls check your word count; 10% plus or minus)
IMAGE: REQUIRED
REQUIRED READING: Bernhard Schlink, THE READER (1995) (First 60 pages are a handout. A great
story; a recommended buy)
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
&
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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DUE: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 5PM
READ ALL WRITERS: WRITERS' VOICES
PREPARE TO COMMENT (USEFULLY) ON CHARACTERISTIC LANGUAGE, STYLE,
STRUCTURE, SUBJECT MATTER YOU IDENTIFY AS HER/HIS VOICE. WITH WHOM DO
YOU MOST EASILY IDENTIFY YOURSELF? WHY?
ASSIGNMENT 14
Helen Levitt (b. 1913)
New York City
ASSIGNMENT 14: ALIENATION
Alienation, n.: estrangement, disaffection, coolness, turning away, withdrawal; separation, division, break,
breach, rupture, sunderance, severance; breaking up or off, parting, disunion, disjunction.
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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Erika crosses open squares in front of museums. Pigeons soar up. In the face of her resoluteness!
Tourists gawk first at Empress Maria Theresa, then at Erika, then back at the empress. Wings rattle.
Museum hours are posted. The streetcars on the Ring head toward traffic lights. Sunlight flickers through
dust. Young mothers begin their daily march behind the bars of the Castle Garden. The first “Prohibited”
signs are hurled down on gravel walks. From their heights, the mothers drip venom. Everywhere, two or
more people now communicate. Colleagues get together, friends get into arguments. Drivers dash
energetically across the Opera Crossing because the pedestrians are out of sight, remaining underground,
where they have to bear the brunt of any damage they themselves cause. Down there, they cannot find
scapegoats, i.e. drivers. People enter stores after first evaluating them on the outside. A few people stroll
aimlessly. The office buildings on the Ring swallow up person after person, people dealing in
import/export. In the Aïda Café, mothers discuss their daughters’ sexual activities, finding them
dangerously premature. They praise their sons’ commitment to school and sports.
Erika Kohut clutches the aberration of a real knife in her handbag. Is the knife going on a trip or
is Erika going to eat humble pie and beg for male forgiveness? She doesn’t know as yet; she will decide
when she arrives. The odds are still on the knife. …
-- Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher
1000 Words: ALIENATION
A photograph thoughtfully selected and placed in the body of the text.
Due: Sunday, December 4, 5pm.
Read the papers and select from this list those points you find most helpful to focus your comments.
1) Opening and Closing: Are they satisfactory? If so why/why not?
2) Transitions: Are they smooth or intentionally abrupt? Two examples.
3) Redundant language: Is redundancy used effectively or does it weaken the text?
4) Voice: Is the voice of the narrator familiar? If so why/why not?
5) Seminal Moment: What is the most important moment in the narrative? Why?
6) Time: How is pacing an important feature of the narrative?
7) Title & Image: Did the image or title add another dimension to the story not already present
in the language? How?
ASSIGNMENT 15 DWELLING
In cities, objects, spaces, occasions are multiplied innumerable times and the opportunities to be, to act, to become, are
in each moment of ones day, also multiplied. In the next (and final) five weeks of the semester we will consider five
archetypal themes related to being and urban life: Dreaming, Roaming, Assignation, Alienation, Dwelling
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
THE NOTEBOOK CLASS
2-4 units
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… It's so quiet in those suburban streets. Whereas here it is never quiet, even at night. The growl and throb
of buses and taxis inching up the Charing Cross Road in low gear carry faintly through the double glazing,
punctuated occasionally by the shrill ululation of a police car or ambulance. If I go to the window, I look
down on pavements still thronged with people coming out of theatres, cinemas, restaurants, and pubs, or
standing about munching takeaway junk food or swigging beer and coke from the can, their breath
condensing in the cold night air. Very rarely does anyone raise their eyes from the ground level of the
building, which is occupied by a pizza and pasta restaurant, and notice that there are six luxury flats above
it, with a man standing at one of the windows, pulling the curtain aside, looking down at them. It isn't a
place that you would expect anybody to live, and indeed it wouldn't be much fun to do so three hundredand sixty five days a year. It's too noisy and dirty. Noise not just from the traffic, but also from the highpitched whine of restaurant ventilator fans at the back of the building that never seem to be turned off, and
dirt not just in the air, which leaves a fine sediment of black dust on every surface though I keep the
windows shut most of the time, but also on the ground, the pavement permanently covered with a slimy
patina of mud and spittle and spilt mild and been dregs and vomit, and scattered over with crushed burger
boxes, crumpled drinks cans, discarded plastic wrappers and paper bags, soiled tissues and used bus
tickets. … And the human detritus is just as visible: drunks, bums, loonies and criminal-looking types
abound. Beggars accost you all the time, and by 10 p.m. every shop doorway has its sleeping occupant…
David Lodge, Therapy, page 38 (1995)
Every Viennese, starting in infancy, is warned never to come anywhere near this area in the dark:
boys to the left, girls to the right. … This is where the hiking mattress was invented and first used. If you
don’t have an apartment, a room, a one-night cheap hotel, or a car, then you have to have a transportable
bed, which keeps you warm and on which you can land softly when you’re floored by lust. Here, Vienna, in
its boundless malice aforethought, puts forth its most beautiful flowers when a nimble Yugoslav or a quick
locksmith, trying to get a freebie, dashes by, pursued by the foul-mouthed professional who has been
cheated of her just reward. But there’s nothing the locksmith yearns for more than an extra wall, so that he
and his girlfriend can conceal the raunchiness of their private lives. Books, a stereo system with speakers
Lifchez, Overview of Environmental Design 101A and 101B
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101A SEMESTER 2009 Short Compositions
WEEKS 1-5: OBJECTS AND THEIR CONTEXT
WEEKS 6-10: DOMESTIC SPACE AND OCCASION
WEEKS 11-14: URBAN LIFE AND IDENTITY
2-4 units
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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 101B SPRING SEMESTER 2010
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and albums, a TV, a radio, a butterfly collection, an aquarium, hobby implements and instruments, and
goodness knows or doesn’t know what else can be shielded from prying eyes and stored safely. A visitor
can see only the dark-stained rosewood partition; he doesn’t see the chaos on the other side. He may – and
should – see the small home bar with its colorful liqueurs and the angrily glittering, endlessly polished
glasses that are judiciously matched to those hues and shades. The glasses are carefully maintained during
the early years of marriage. Later on, they get smashed by the children, or else the wife forgets to polish
them because the husband always comes home so late after drinking outside somewhere. The mirrored bar
slowly develops a coat of dust.
Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher, page 132 (1983)
dwell: reside, domicile, live; (with on or upon) inhabit, people, populate; abide, Archaic, bide, sojourn,
stay, tarry, remain, Sl. Crash; room, bunk, lodge, tenant; quarter, take up quarters, settle, be settled, keep
house, establish oneself, plant oneself, put down stakes, anchor; pitch tent, encamp bivouac; nestle, roost,
burrow, perch, tabernacle, put up at.
1000 Words: DWELLING
Prompt: Finally there. A photograph thoughtfully selected and placed in the body of the text.
Due: Sunday, 5pm.
N.B. ASSIGNMENT 15, DWELLING, ISSUED TUESDAY DECEMBER 6 WILL BE DUE SUNDAY
DECEMBER 11. THESE WILL BE DISCUSSED AT A CLASS MEETING (OPTIONAL) (TBA) OR
DURING AN OFFICE VISIT. MAJOR TOPIC: THE BODY OF WORK.
Due: Tuesday, December 13: a CDROM with all writings from the semester (due no later than
Friday December 15, 5pm, Lifchez' post box, 232 Wurster (or otherwise).
READERS FOR #15:
At your election