Framing Discussion Lead Schedule

| DATE | TOPICS | READING | Discussant 1 | Discussant 2 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1/21 | Course overview | Syllabus | | | | 1/26 | What exactly is and is not poverty? pt.1 | Lewis, Oscar. 1966. “The Culture of Poverty.” Scientific American 215, no. 4 (October): 19. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1066-19

Green, Maia. 2006. “Representing Poverty and Attacking Representations: Perspectives on Poverty from Social Anthropology.” Journal of Development Studies 42, no. 7 (October): 1108–29. doi:10.1080/00220380600884068. | | | | 1/28 | What exactly is and is not poverty? pt.2 | Scoones, Ian. 2009. “Livelihoods Perspectives and Rural Development.” Journal of Peasant Studies 36, no. 1 (January): 171–96.doi:10.1080/03066150902820503.

Escobar, Arturo. 1995.“The problematization of poverty: A tale of three worlds and development,” in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, pp. 21-54. Princeton: Princeton University Press. | | | | 2/2 | Learning to learn: Fieldwork planning workshop | Morton, Keith. 1997. “Campus and Community at Providence College.” In Expanding Boundaries: Building Civic Responsibility Within Higher Education, 8–11. Volume 2. Washington, DC: Corporation for National Service.

Illich, Ivan. 1990. “To Hell with Good Intentions.” In Combining Service and Learning: A Resource Book for Community and Public Service, edited by Jane C. Kendall and Associates, vol. 1, 314–20. Raleigh, NC: National Society for Internships and Experiential Education. (Presented in 1968.) | | | | 2/4 | How value is made | Smith, David N. 2014. Marx’s Capital Illustrated: An Illustrated Introduction. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Selected pages.

Giles, David Boarder. 2021. “Introduction: Of Waste, Cities, and Conspiracies.” In A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People: Food Not Bombs and the World-Class Waste of Global Cities, 1–20. New York: Duke University Press. doi:10.1515/9781478021711. | | | | 2/9 | Every city is ordinary, every city is global | Sassen, Saskia. 2002. “Introduction: Locating Cities on Global Circuits.” In Global Networks, Linked Cities, 1–36. London: Routledge.

Robinson, Jennifer. 2005. “Introduction: Post-colonialising Urban Studies.” In Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development, 1–12. London: Routledge. | | | | 2/11 | Whose city? | Zukin, Sharon. 2008. “Whose Culture? Whose City?” In The Cultural Geography Reader, edited by Timothy Oakes and Patricia L. Price, 8–16. London: Routledge.

Harvey, David. 2008. “The Right to the City.” New Left Review 53 (September–October): 23–40. | | | | 2/16 | Aesthetics pt.1: Spectacles | Giles, David Boarder. 2021. “Place-making and Waste-making in the Global City.” In A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People, chap. 3, 89–116. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Smith C, Woodcraft S. 2020. Introduction: Tower block “failures”? High-rise anthropology. Focaal 86:1–10 | | | | 2/18 | Aesthetics pt. 2: Street Arts for ghettoization and/or gentrification

In class: First month check in | Wright, William J., and C. K. Herman. 2018. “No ‘Blank Canvas’: Public Art and Gentrification in Houston’s Third Ward.” City & Society 30 (1): 89–116.

Tawasil, A. 2023. The Ongoing Work of New York City Graffiti Writers During the Covid-19 Epoch. In: Rosen, M. (eds) The Ethnography of Reading at Thirty. Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38226-0_13 | | | | 2/23 | Infrastructures pt.1 | Winner, Langdon. 1980. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Daedalus 109 (1): 121–36. Goldsmith, Claire. 2025. “Robert Moses NYC Tour.” Robert Moses Map.https://www.robertmosesmap.com/

Kollar, Sylvia. 2023. “The Aerial Views of Robert Moses.” For the Record: Blog of the NYC Department of Records & Information Services, August 18, 2023.https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2023/8/18/aerial-views | | | | 2/25 | Infrastructures pt.2 and Splintering Urbanism | Easterling, Keller. 2014. “Introduction.” In Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructural Space, 1–12. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Graham, Stephen, and Simon Marvin. 2001. “Introduction.” In Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, 7–35. London: Routledge.

Recommended: BMW Guggenheim Lab. 2011. Urbanology Online. BMW Guggenheim Lab website. Accessed January 19, 2026. https://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/urbanology-online. | | | | 3/2 | Environment pt.1: Sacrifice zones | Lerner, Steve. 2010. Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Introduction and chapter on Green point, New York

Ruiz, Angelina. 2021. “What Does Sustainability Mean in the Bronx?” Vox, September 8, 2021. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22654323/sustainability-bronx-environmental-racism-zero-waste | | | | 3/4 | Environment pt. 2: Environmental Gentrification | Checker M. 2020. The Sustainability Myth: Environmental Gentrification and the Politics of Justice. New York University Press Introduction and choose one of the chapters from Environmental Gentrification. | | | | 3/9 | Who gets to move?

In-class: mid semester check in | Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241–58. New York: Greenwood Press. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu-forms-capital.htm

Marschall, Melissa. 2015. “Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community: Empirical Foundations, Causal Mechanisms, and Policy Implications.” In The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration, edited by Martin Lodge, Edward C. Page, and Steven J. Balla. Oxford: Oxford University Press. | | | | 3/11 | Midterm workshop | Revisit course readings that you plan to engage with for your project. | | | | 3/16 | SPRING BREAK NO CLASS | | | | | 3/18 | | | | | | 3/23 | People making do, pt.1 | De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Introduction (xi - xxiv) Making Do: Uses and Tactics (29-42) Spatial Practice (91-130)

Graeber, David. "On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: A work rant." Strike Magazine 3, no. 1 (2013): 2. | | | | 3/25 | People making do, pt. 2 | Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2005. “People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg.” Public Culture 16 (3): 407–29.

Roy, Ananya. 2005. “Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 71 (2): 147–58. | | | | 3/30 | Hunger as violence | Simmons, Dana. 2025. “Weapon of White Supremacy.” In On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic, 96–115. Berkeley: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/9780520412996.

Penniman, Leah. 2017. “4 Not-So-Easy Ways to Dismantle Racism in the Food System.” YES! Magazine, April 27, 2017. https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2017/04/27/4-not-so-easy-ways-to-dismantle-racism-in-the-food-system

Recommended: World Food Clock. n.d. World Food Clock. http://worldfoodclock.com/ | | | | 4/1 | Desert? | Reese, Ashanté M. 2019. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Introduction and Conclusion required, plus one chapter of your choice. | | | | 4/6 | COLLEGE BREAK NO CLASS | | | | | 4/8 | Fixing school food | Poppendieck, Janet. 2010. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, 133–60. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapter: The Missing Millions: Problems of Participation.” Chpater: Hunger in the Classroom: Problems of Access. | | | | 4/13 | Hunger and Ozempic | Simmons, Dana. “Ozempic.” In On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic, 1st ed., 85:134–50. University of California Press, 2025. http://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.27461506.12.

Anderson, Ellie, and David Peña-Guzmán. 2024. “Fatphobia with Kate Manne.” Overthink Podcast, January 30, 2024. https://overthinkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-96?rq=food | | | | 4/15 | Homelessness in a land of plenty | Shinn, Marybeth, and Jill Khadduri. 2020. In the Midst of Plenty: Homelessness and What to Do About It, 21–54. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Chapter: Who becomes homeless? OR Chapter: What causes homelessness? | | | | 4/20 | Homelessness of space-time/time-space | O’Neill, Bruce. 2017. The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1 | | | | 4/22 | Squatters | Starecheski, Amy. 2019. “Squatters Make History in New York: Property, History, and Collective Claims on the City.” American Ethnologist 46 (1): 61–74.

Mars, Roman, and Delaney Hall, producers. 2017. “Squatters of the Lower East Side.” 99% Invisible (podcast), May 30, 2017. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/squatters-lower-east-side/

Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS). 2026. Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS). https://morusnyc.org/ | | | | 4/27 | Why do smart people come up with dumb plans? Pt.1 | Poppendieck, Janet. 2010. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, 133–60. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapter 4 and chapter 7 | | | | 4/29 | Why do smart people come up with dumb plans? pt.2 | Giles, David Boarder. 2021. “Place-making and Waste-making in the Global City.” In A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People, chap. 3, 89–116. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Chapter 5

Carpenter-Song, Elizabeth. 2023. “Paradoxes of care.” In Families on the Edge: Experiences of Homelessness and Care in Rural New England, 71–95. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press | | | | 5/4 | Final paper workshop

Last class reflection