Urban Humanities Initiative

TW: immigration trauma & death

This week we are featuring “ÁGUILAS,” a documentary co-directed by UHI Core Faculty member Maite Zubiaurre and the winner of Big Sky Film Festival’s 2021 Mini-Doc Award!

Maite’s co-direction of Aguilas was inspired by her research into forensic empathy, “a newly coined term that stands for consciousness-raising activism and compassion-triggering artistic practices around migrant suffering and migrant death,” which emerged as part of a UHI seminar. Watch the ÁGUILAS trailer at the link in bio, or read more below.

“Along the scorching southern border in Arizona, only an estimated one out of every five missing migrants is ever found. ÁGUILAS is the story of one group of searchers, the Águilas del Desierto. Comprised largely of immigrant Latinos, once a month these volunteers — construction workers, gardeners and domestic laborers by day — set out to recover the missing, reported to them by loved ones often thousands of miles away.”

This week’s must read - “City analog: scavenging sonic archives and urban pedagogy” in the Review of Communication Vol 20(4): (Re)Sounding Pedagogies; authored by UHI Alums Jacqueline Jean Barrios and Kenny Wong (Tokyo ‘17 and Alumni Salon organizers). Learn more at the link in bio!

Pictured: Community annotations feathering a thick map with Post-it notes relate remembered city sounds upon students’ scavenged archive and data on damages in the 1992 civil unrest.

Abstract: In this essay, we describe a pedagogy for teaching and studying literature and cities through the embodiment of an urban sound scavenger. Extending Walter Benjamin’s figure of the ragpicker to poetically assemble disparate urban imaginaries, we explore how two linked teaching projects set in Los Angeles, CA, demonstrate listening bodies coconstituting both literary texts and urban environments.

Credit:
Jacqueline Jean Barrios & Kenny H. Wong (2020) City analog: scavenging sonic archives and urban pedagogy

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@ Los Angeles, California

This week’s must read - “City analog: scavenging sonic archives and urban pedagogy” in the Review of Communication Vol 20(4): (Re)Sounding Pedagogies; authored by UHI Alums Jacqueline Jean Barrios and Kenny Wong (Tokyo ‘17 and Alumni Salon organizers). Learn more at the link in bio!

Pictured: Exhibition of “LA 1992/London 1780: Sounding Out a Crowd” juxtaposing two images of civil unrest from the cities studied; Liner notes students created to accompany the scavenged sounds revealing their inspiration, rationale, and the locations where they were recorded.

In this essay, we describe a pedagogy for teaching and studying literature and cities through the embodiment of an urban sound scavenger. Extending Walter Benjamin’s figure of the ragpicker to poetically assemble disparate urban imaginaries, we explore how two linked teaching projects set in Los Angeles, CA, demonstrate listening bodies coconstituting both literary texts and urban environments.

# analog @ Los Angeles, California

This LA weather has us dreaming of summer - and reflecting back on the wide range of summer research projects produced by the UHI 2019-20 cohort.

eCodex: Los Angeles Trans-Culturation :

Prompted by a call to create a dynamic, digital eCodex, inspired and informed by ancient and contemporary Mesoamerican codices, this project represents a phenomenological approach to the aspects of spatial translation, “space-making” and the construction of identity, via corporeal-temporal-spatial orientation.
The resulting product is entitled eCodex: Los Angeles Trans-Culturation. It is a body of work composed of symbols and stories that reflect the performative placemaking that defines the immigrant and indigenous diaspora as it manifests in Los Angeles’s Westlake / MacArthur Park neighborhood.

Team Members: Cassie Hoeprich, Akana Jayewardene, Tiffany Orozco, Lili Raygoza

This LA weather has us dreaming of summer - and reflecting back on the wide range of summer research projects produced by the UHI 2019-20 cohort.

La Lotería:
Our collective has undertaken a scholarly intervention in the traditional lottery icons by re-imagining them as emblematic of new geographies and new identities that the postborder city generates; a zone where converging traditions transforms the culture of the inhabitants. In order to represent this, we created a lottery game board consisting of nine new images that demonstrate the potential of an equitable, spatially just geographic and cultural environment. The postborder city we imagine produces culture rather than enforced social and national hierarchies.

Team Members: Nylsa Martinez, Adam Boggs, Tiffany Orozco, Zach Zeilman

This LA weather has us dreaming of summer - and reflecting back on the wide range of summer research projects produced by the UHI 2019-20 cohort.

Environmental Design at a Distance: A Youth-Centered Approach to Participatory Design

Recognizing the creative power youth have, and the value of exposing youth to planning and design processes, we created a curriculum for participatory design with K-12 students. It includes a 75 -page guide compiling research and instructions for activities that can be done in the classroom or virtually. Additionally, we designed a toolbox that includes all the supplies necessary for each student which can be easily distributed during the pandemic.
By including youth in these processes, planners and designers can make more informed, equitable decisions, and can help break cycles of inequity by empowering youth (especially youth of color) to participate in the decisions being made in their community.

Team Members: Roya Chagnon and Andres Gonzalez



@ Los Angeles, California

“Now that I am well and strong,
I would like to do something of lasting service
for the race.” - Iola Leroy

UHI invites YOU to RSVP to Dear Iola, Love South LA: a film festival featuring 8 short films directed by South LA youth based on their study of the novel Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper. This Saturday, February 20 from 3-5 PM students will share their stories about precious South LA hubs under a pandemic, remembering an iconic skating rink (World on Wheels) as it faces permanent closure, speaking out against displacement and gentrification, exploring why is their fight, and more.

UHI is proud to support , director Jacqueline Barrios (UHI ‘17), and collaborator Lili Flores-Raygoza (UHI ‘20). RSVP at link in bio!



@ South Los Angeles, California

We miss seeing our students, collaborators, and faculty in person. Revisiting our collective work in Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City reminds us of the power of this interdisciplinary community, and motivates us to keep finding new ways to connect, research, and imagine alternative futures. And hey - books just make us really happy! If a good book makes you smile like Dana here, you may want to check out the link in bio…

More from publisher MIT Press below:

Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies.

Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present, and speculating about their futures. This book introduces both the theory and practice of urban humanities, tracing the evolution of the concept, presenting methods and practices with a wide range of research applications, describing changes in teaching and curricula, and offering case studies of urban humanities practices in the field.

Urban humanities views the city through a lens of spatial justice, and its inquiries are centered on the microsettings of everyday life. The book's case studies report on real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim—Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles—with several projects described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles.

Read all about it! Did you know there’s a UHI Book? Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City is co-authored by our core faculty, Dana Cuff, Anastasia Loukaitou Sideris, Todd Presner, and Maite Zubiaurre alongside Jonathan Jae-an Crisman. Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies. Find a copy today at the link in bio!

More from publisher MIT Press below:

Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies.

Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present, and speculating about their futures. This book introduces both the theory and practice of urban humanities, tracing the evolution of the concept, presenting methods and practices with a wide range of research applications, describing changes in teaching and curricula, and offering case studies of urban humanities practices in the field.

Urban humanities views the city through a lens of spatial justice, and its inquiries are centered on the microsettings of everyday life. The book's case studies report on real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim—Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles—with several projects described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles.

Read all about it! Did you know there’s a UHI Book? Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City details original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies. Order your copy today at the link in bio, and learn more from our publisher, MIT Press, below:

Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present, and speculating about their futures. This book introduces both the theory and practice of urban humanities, tracing the evolution of the concept, presenting methods and practices with a wide range of research applications, describing changes in teaching and curricula, and offering case studies of urban humanities practices in the field.

Urban humanities views the city through a lens of spatial justice, and its inquiries are centered on the microsettings of everyday life. The book's case studies report on real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim—Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Los Angeles—with several projects described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles.