To (Not) Get Lost in the City of Phnom Penh

October 10, 2024.Reading time 20 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Zhiyi Wang “Everyone gets lost in Phnom Penh,” commented a Cambodian friend when we were trying to pinpoint a location on Google Maps. He is from Battambang, which along with Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Cambodia’s largest and most […]

My Street Looks Different Now: Oral History and the Anti-Redlining Movement

October 8, 2024.Reading time 26 minutes.

This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Joshua Rosen In 1974, when Richard Wise was hired as a community organizer in Boston’s Jamaica Plain,[1] there were thirty-one abandoned buildings in the center of the neighborhood. He remembers cars burning underneath the elevated train line nearly every week.[2] Banks […]

Yan Zongo: A Research Note on Accra’s Strangers

September 19, 2023.Reading time 19 minutes.

The ninth and final post from our 2023 Graduate Student Blogging Contest is from Fauziyatu Moro. She writes about how stumbling onto the important mementos of immigrants, while doing fieldwork in Accra, led her to develop her thesis topic, which broadens understanding of the lives of migrants by looking at their leisure activities. To see […]

Stumbling Upon Stillburg: Using Memory and Research to Revive a Forgotten Architectural Career

September 14, 2023.Reading time 24 minutes.

Inga Gudmundsson McGuire writes about how discovering that her ancestor was a Pittsburgh architect inspired her to learn more about him and ensure that his memory and legacy are not forgotten in the eighth entry in our 2023 Graduate Student Blogging Contest. To see all entries from this year’s contest check out our round up […]

Once Upon a Time in Istanbul: The City of Melancholia as Remembered by Orhan Pamuk

September 27, 2022.Reading time 19 minutes.

Editor’s note: Istanbul is the Metropolis of the Month for September. This is the fifth entry in the series. You can read additional entries, as they are published, linked at the conclusion of this post. By Nefise Kahraman Istanbul, that cosmopolitan city of empires, featured in the itineraries of many travelers, an exoticized setting for […]

“Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds”: Examining Minnesota’s Indigenous History

October 13, 2020.Reading time 14 minutes.

By Katrina Phillips Minnesota has always been a Native place. The state takes its name from a Dakota phrase, Mni Sota Makoce, which translates to “land where the waters reflect the clouds.” While the state’s capital is the other Twin City (St. Paul), Minneapolis is the largest city in the state. Its English name also […]

Member of the Week: Patricia Ploehn

February 5, 2019.Reading time 6 minutes.

Patricia Ploehn Senior, Honors College, College of Charleston Double major in Historic Preservation and Art History, minor in Southern Studies Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently involved in two different research projects! I am continuing my research on the interpretation of monuments by seeking out more contentious […]

CFP for UC-Berkeley: Landscapes of Memory

November 9, 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

The Metropole digs symposiums. Who doesn’t? Recently, the Global Urban Humanities Initiative (a joint venture between the UC Berkeley Arts & Humanities Division of the College of Letters & Science and the College of Environmental Design) contacted the UHA about its upcoming two day symposium: Techniques of Memory: Landscape, Iconoclasm, Medium, and Power. Needless to say, we […]