M-F, 11:45 AM-1:00 PM, SY 0013

NOTE: Students who have previously taken C425 with Professor Cindy
Smith (with Rhetoric of Architecture as the topic) can take the
course again this summer for credit with Cassandra Secrease-
Dickson.

Instructor: Cassandra Secrease-Dickson
E-Mail: csecreas@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 253
Phone: 855-7238

Places, both mundane and exceptional, become meaningful according to
the events and people associated with a specific space.  Often,
place is not an arbitrary player in the symbolic discourses
constructing identity, nationalism, and globalism.   Location is
fundamental for a variety of symbolic forms including memorials,
festivals, monuments, tourist sites, and even war.  The ability to
infuse a place with meaning is linked but not limited to
institutions of power and hegemonic ideologies.  Official
interpretations of place are subjected to the individual
understanding and memory of people including marginalized groups.
Clashes between meanings ruptures official narratives and opens
spaces for reinterpretation and inclusion of multiple meanings for
spaces.  In this course, we will look at the performative and
rhetorical processes employed for infusing certain places with
meaning.  More importantly, we will also examine the ways in which
these meanings are maintained, contested, and altered by exploring
places valued personally, nationally, and internationally.