Cultural Landscapes - Nieves

Today was an interesting and unusual day in class. Professor Nieves began class by posting a sign at the door that prevented anyone who didn't have i.d. on them from entering the classroom. The class was divided in two and only those who could show a drivers liscence were permitted to go in. After this surprising and unexpected exercise, we began class by discussing the purpose behind it. We talked about how it felt to be either inside or outside, included or excluded. Many of else said we felt silly or embarrassed for having to prove who we are. Those on the inside of the classroom who happened to have their ids generally felt lucky, but they also felt bad for the rest of us.

Professor Nieves then shifted our focus from this exercise to a discussion of space and how we think about it. He taught us that all space means something, even the space of the classroom we were sitting in. He talked about the literal and figurative meaning of space between people and/or between objects and he then showed us a power point of images that helped us apply this concept to the borderlands as a space. As we moved through different pictures of the borderlands, we began to define the term "cultural landscape" and the many layers of meaning that such a term carries. We looked at the wall, at particular signs, and also at images of the expansive desert. In compiling these images, we began to formulate a more rounded view of the U.S./Mexican border as a physical location that enabled our discussion of the figurative spatial limitations that exist there.

Professor Nieves then collected all of the short pieces we had written about "nervous landscapes" and taped them to the board. We spent about ten minutes walking around the room and reading one another's interpretations of what, exactly, the phrase "nervous landscape" means as it was defined in the aritcle we read, and also how we can apply it to a place like the Sonora Desert. This exercise was intersting because it didn't require each person to explain his/her write-up, we were able to read fellow students' thoughts and think about them without analyzing for a few minutes. We then discussed our various interpretations of this assignment and moved on to talk more in depth about "nervous landscapes" as places. We specifically talked about the nervous landscape in Australia where the colonization of Aborigines through a manipulation and imposition of space damaged an entire society of people.

Lastly, in order to reemphasize the point that space matters everywhere and that nervous landscapes exist all around us, Professor Nieves broke the class into three groups. Each group had to discuss different places as a nervous lanpscape. Some examples of the places we discussed as nervous landscapes were the World Trade Center or Kirkland College. This shifted the way we had been talking about cultural landscapes from something along a faraway borderland to something much more close to home. In conceptualizing a nervous landscape as something that can and does exist at Hamilton, we were able to understand Professor Nieves' point that everywhere, space says something that has serious consequences for those that inhabit it.