Graduate Seminar: Race & Radical Placemaking
COGR 262
Next Up, Spring 2026
Image: “Water Writes Phoenix, Arizona” photo by Andrew Curley. See https://www.estria.org/project/phoenix-arizona/
Curley, A., & Smith, S. (2024). The cene scene: Who gets to theorize global time and how do we center indigenous and black futurities? Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 7(1), 166-188. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231173865
This graduate seminar brings multidisciplinary approaches to racial formations and radical placemaking. To do so, we will move from structural critiques of power relations towards learning from how people engage in radical placemaking and anticolonial worldmaking for the promise of collective liberation. To build new theories, we will also grapple with authors’ positionalities and different methods employed including classic ethnography and archival work, and building out cohort-focused group interviews, storymaps, and drawing constellated neighborhood memories.
Last taught, winter 2024. Syllabus
Spring 2026 Draft Syllabus