Spring 2026. Skylar Tiange Kaat (they/them)
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Framing Discussion Lead Schedule
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Library - University of Mount Saint Vincent
Oxley Integrated Advising Program - University of Mount Saint Vincent
Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University
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| DATE | TOPICS | READING | ASSIGNMENTS | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 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.) | Fieldsite decision: Complete brief survey to indicate choice of field site Due: 2/2, end of class | | 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 | Extra credits: (in)visible infrastructures | | 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 | SPRING BREAK NO CLASS | | | | 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. | Midterm Project Proposal 2-3 pages, double space, in Times New Roman, 12 points font and 1’’ margins On Google Docs Due: 3/23, 11:59p | | 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
Course Evaluation | | | | 5/6 - 5/12 | EXAM DAY | | Final Portfolio
Footnote:
Intellectual work is communal. I am deeply grateful to the professors who modeled, during my undergraduate and graduate training, what teaching with care and accessibility in mind can look like. Much of their language and many of their teaching practices have shaped the courseworks I now create. I thank Professor Mark Shea, my first-year seminar instructor at Mount Holyoke College, for generously sharing his teaching materials as models to learn from. I also thank Professor Mara Green for demonstrating the importance of citing engagement and inspiration, even from informal conversations, as a way of honoring the collaborative nature of academic work.