Community, Memory, and a Sense of Place

FAIN: AK-255383-17

RIT (Rochester, NY 14623-5698)
Lisa Hermsen (Project Director: October 2016 to March 2021)
Richard S. Newman (Co Project Director: June 2018 to March 2021)

An interdisciplinary curricular project to develop three place-based general education courses on the meaning and history of community.

This Humanities Connections grant will create a new three-course sequence in RIT's general education curriculum. By studying community from a host of disciplinary perspectives – historical, geographical, literary, environmental and socioeconomic – undergraduate students will gain a better understanding of how distinct communities have formed, changed and often retained a distinct sense of place amid shifting economic, political and technological forces. We will build on the University's long-standing faculty engagement with area communities, to engage with Marketview Heights, a vibrant neighborhood born of Rochester’s rich industrial heritage that is now struggling amid the vicissitudes of deindustrialization and new economic times. Students will learn about the various ways that people have understood community in times of both seeming stasis and rapid change, and will be challenged with a more critical understanding of community, memory and place in the 21st century global world.

Media Coverage

Recent Discovery Highlights Frederick Douglass, The Businessman (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Beth Adams
Publication: WSKG, PBS and NPR Affiliate
Date: 8/3/2018
Abstract: Local scholars say a recent discovery found among the personal artifacts of Frederick Douglass broadens our understanding of the famed abolitionist.
URL: https://wskg.org/history/recent-discovery-highlights-frederick-douglass-the-businessman/

Associated Products

HIST-340 Rochester Reformers: Changing the World (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: HIST-340 Rochester Reformers: Changing the World
Author: Richard Newman
Abstract: This course will survey Rochester area social reformers who led a number of critical reform movements, identifying problems with the status quo and proposing solutions to those problems. They worked to establish a new social order and even to perfect society. As an Erie Canal boom town and major manufacturing hub, Rochester inspired generations of famous reformers who made principled arguments for improving urban life and labor relations, ending slavery and securing civil rights for African Americans, and claiming equality for American women. Students will study the historical impact of celebrated social reformers such as Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony as well as less well known figures like religious revivalist Charles Finney, urban park reformer Charles Mulford Robinson, and advocate of the social gospel Walter Rauschenbusch. The course will also introduce contemporary efforts that have attempted to reshape principles of social justice locally and nationally. In the 20th century the social reform movement efforts turned to the ethical and social problems of a modernizing America, debating solutions to the pressing problems of urbanization, immigration, and environmental protection. Students will also work on a community-based research project focusing on the history and impact of particular Rochester reformers. Lecture 3 (Spring).
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.rit.edu/study/history-bs#curriculum
Primary URL Description: Rochester Institute of Technology, Department of History
Audience: Undergraduate

ENGL-322 Literary Geographies (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: ENGL-322 Literary Geographies
Author: Lisa Hermsen
Abstract: The course uses both literature and geography, artful writing and creative mapping, to explore the art of storytelling in both fictional and real places. From Sherlock Holmes’s 221B Baker St. London to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, geography is more than an artistic theme, and maps are more than creative illustrations. We will read literature that uses spatial dimensions not only to indicate a destination and point of origin, but to create place–spectacular stories from the Iowa plains to rust belt cities to the networked future. We will also navigate a specific geographical space, telling numerous narrative stories about its pavement and is inhabitants. Through community-based research, students will explore a Rochester community, story-mapping its complex histories, social networks, and contemporary environments. Using literary geography, students will integrate their writing into a final mosaic project–a collaborative digital community map. Lecture 3 (Spring).
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.rit.edu/liberalarts/study/english-minor
Primary URL Description: Rochester Institute of Technology, Department of English
Audience: Undergraduate

STSO-335 Industry, Environment, and Community in Rochester (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: STSO-335 Industry, Environment, and Community in Rochester
Author: Kristopher Whitney
Abstract: This course examines Rochester through the lens of industrialization, immigration, technological innovation, and environmental change between the 1890s and 1990s. This class blends readings and discussion with experiential learning and community-based research projects to help students understand community identity as a result of changes in livelihoods, immigration, and environment. Students will examine these social changes in both a local and global context. Students will have a better appreciation for the way historical forces shape a contemporary sense of place. Lecture 3 (Spring).
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.rit.edu/liberalarts/study/science-technology-and-society-minor
Audience: Undergraduate

“Humanities, STEM, and Management: New interdisciplinary pathways for 21st century learning." AAC&U Atlanta, January 2019. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Humanities, STEM, and Management: New interdisciplinary pathways for 21st century learning." AAC&U Atlanta, January 2019.
Author: With Binghamton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Ursinus Co
Abstract: Humanities, STEM, and Management: New interdisciplinary pathways for 21st century learning.” AAC&U Atlanta, January 2019. With Binghamton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Ursinus College.
Date: 01/25/2019

“Making Connections: Memory, Sense of Place and Community Engagement.” Association of General & Liberal Studies. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Making Connections: Memory, Sense of Place and Community Engagement.” Association of General & Liberal Studies.
Author: M. Ann Howard
Author: Lisa Hermsen
Abstract: “Making Connections: Memory, Sense of Place and Community Engagement.” Association of General & Liberal Studies. Pittsburgh August 2018. With M. Ann Howard.
Date: 08/15/2018

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