Many thanks to Jonathan Eaton, with Cultural Heritage Without Borders in Albania, and Simon Battisti, Fulbright Scholar and architect currently working in Albania, for being kind enough to provide guest lectures via video conference with my Writing, Rhetoric, and Culture class January 2015. In that discussion, I was particularly interested in having students think through how the city as a space is a site of contested desire, and how we read the stories cities have to tell.
In many ways, our video conference continues a conversation about memory and identity that Jon and I have been having since our Fulbright year in Albania 2009 – 2010. As an architect working in Albania and imagining futures, Simon has recently entered this conversation – a conversation into which I would like to invite you.
I’ll let Jon and Simon tell you more about their interests, but as a concrete way of continuing our conversation, let me share a few images from a trip to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey to visit my friends Seher, Yucel, and Bora. Obviously, as Jon is a cultural anthropologist, I made him come with me. Among the amazing places we visited was Side – http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20110526-an-epic-ancient-ruins-road-trip.
That’s Jon at the Temple of Apollo, which is literally sitting on the Mediterranean Sea. To the right is the arch to the city, which has been settled since the 6th century B.C. Note the taxis driving under the arch . . .
I use these images to open up several questions for us: How do we tell the story of “civilization,” and how does this story set up a story of “civilized” and “uncivilized” . . . and the “West”? How does something like taxis driving under an ancient archway allow us to see “past” and “present” on a continuum, and, on this continuum, how do we imagine futures?
To use the language from the reading that framed our discussion:
“Illusion and rhetoric are indeed an important part of social reality, which is not based only on a rational instrumentality, but has strong aesthetic and narrative components – human cultural activity, with all its creative energy, and is a major part of social construction” (Gunder & Hiller 2009, 9).
In our video conference, Jerrod mentioned that, as we were discussing city, memory, identity, and space as language in Albania, everything kept coming back to the cold war. Life under the communist regime, the effects of transition, the city as a capitalist space — these are the daily realities of Albanians and people throughout Southeast Europe and the Balkans. Americans have forgotten this history already . . . .
One of the things I have kept thinking ever since Jerrod said this: For those of you born into this age of the war on terror, will your children have forgotten about the cultural rhetorics of this war (and how these rhetorics shape public space) — even as people in other parts of the world are still digging their way from under the rubble?
I’d like to invite you to continue thinking about the conversation we opened up on Thursday. What stood out for you from the conversation? What has the conversation made you think of since?
A couple of points from our reading that might serve as anchors for you (though they do not have to . . . )
- Planning is the performance of a story (9)
- Planners “create, mediate and facilitate common goals and visions of a desired future for our communities” (9)
- What are the “dimensions of desire, aspiration and fantasy embedded in our construction of human settlements” and how are “Our dreams integral in the shaping of social reality and the actualization or materialization of our built environments” (2)
- We “need to understand both ‘language and a process of emotional involvement, of embodiment’, in planning processes . . . ‘many planning disputes are about relationships, and therefore emotions, rather than [just] conflicts over resources (qtd. from Sandercock, 11).
- “It is this abstract aggregate of the ‘big Other’ – which constitutes society and the illusions and fantasies that we generate about it and ourselves – that we respond to and materialize in our actions. This in turn, ideologically shapes the social reality that is observable in our behaviours and is articulated in language. That is it constitutes our lived space” (13)
Gunder, Michael & Jean Hiller. Planning in 10 Words or Less: A Lacanian Entanglement with Spatial Planning. Surrey; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.
I really enjoyed the Skype discussion we had in class, although I didn’t say much I was definitely thinking the entire time. What stood out the most to me in the discussion was that there are these two Americans, Jon and Simon,and correct me if I’m wrong,in Tirana, Albania helping to reconstruct a city all while preserving history. I thought “Wow, what difficult jobs this must be.” Now, I don’t know the structural and political aspects of it all, but how do these two Americans fit into this position. They surely must be chastised by the community even though they have good intentions. And I say this because what do two Americans truly feel and understand about building Tirana while preserving the culture. I guess to tie it in to one of the anchors, they are planners for this desired community. How do they fit into the community? How do they keep from having their biases intrude on the planning process? I don’t even know for sure if these are problems they face, but are questions I had in mind. I wondered throughout the planning process were there any disputes because of their origin.
I think that the most profound point we came to as a result of our Skype conference and later discussion is about our children when it comes to the rhetoric of these wars. Our children tend to only learn what we find important for them to know, even if everything has its deep-rooted grain of importance, if we find it something insignificant, it will not be emphasized. In my opinion everything has its importance, everything has its story to tell with a lesson to learn, nothing should be left out. My children may grown to learn about those things, but what about others. One of the things about passing this information onto our children is that not everyone sees the same thing as important, and when schooling comes into play the standards are not always the same either. Public schools, whose standards are determined by the state/board of educators, will put into their standards what they want their students to learn. So, in many instances if something does not pertain, let’s say, to the major history of the United States, it will not be incorporated.
The sad thing about this is that it teaches children to not find interest in these other stories. While they learn of the greatness of their own nation, another nation struggles through its own tragedies and developments believing that no one else cares what becomes of them. I, personally, want those nations to know that there are people from other nations that care, that children are being taught about them and raised to not forget about them. I think that we should just as interested in the culture of Albania, and of other such countries, as we are in our own development and culture, and not only because it is interesting, but also because it can help us better understand ourselves and others.
Our Skype discussion was very enlightening learning about Albanian culture. I will try and retell the points that stood out to me from my poor memory. We tell the story of civilization through our architecture; it tells us a story of our past. Within certain cultures for example, we noted that some people may get to places through car or on foot. By getting by car, we argued whether there is much of “community.”
The picture in which Lori gives us shows the Temple in contrast to the culture of today of cars, and industrialisation. The human social development is encoded in the picture of the taxi’s going underneath the Apollo. Is the car driving through the Temple a symbol for forgetting our social identity from which our history built? From the Apollo, which is aesthetically pleasing, to now taxi’s driving through it. Even though the Temple is very beautiful and grand, it serves it purpose like the taxi to get the public A to B. In order to keep up with social development around the world shows the sharp contrast of what the rhetoric now is in today’s society.
From the conversation, there are different civilisations everywhere, for example, where I am in Britain the main different with driving is that we drive on the other side of the road. I feel that once we are placed outside our cultures, we are shocked to see what differences there are when we are placed in a different atmosphere.
So– I am going to begin my comment by stating that I am a future educator, and an importance/interest to me is our children and the future ahead of them. What REALLY grabbed my attention in our Skype session was when we were told that Albanian children who are even given the opportunity for school have to translate their books if they wish to read/study from them. This was an eye opener for me. I feel that we almost take education for granted in the States when the reality is that children in other places are lacking standard, fundamental resources. Another issue that grabbed my attention, like CiCi mentioned in her comment, is how the rhetoric of the wars is being presented to children. It is easy to hide things from children, simply just by not drawing attention to certain topics. I believe this is wrong, especially when it is something so traumatizing and so significant to say, your people, and your culture. I believe to stand as one world, we need to be aware of things. It is through awareness we are able to reach understanding and to move away from ignorance. And to move away from ignorance and reach understanding, we are able to be there for one another.
I believe that the thing that really stuck out to me in our Skype conversation the other day was the fact that compared to Albania, the United States is a automobile driven country. As mentioned in our conversation last week, in Albania you can survive without having a car due to the fact that either everything is within walking distance, or one can use a mode of public transportation. After thinking about this I realized that this was correct, I could not imagine going through a daily routine without having to climb into my car. In today’s society people use there car for everything. People need them in order to go from place to place, they eat in their cars, and even sleep in them as well. But, as I was thinking about this car situation somebody else made a comment about how in the more urbanized areas of America it is more common for people to not have a car. People in the more urbanized areas take advantage of other means of transportation such as buses, taxi car, and trains. This made me even think further into our conversation and soon I realized that even though people in urbanized areas may not use cars as much, a vast majority of the people still do have cars. So overall my main take away is that the USA is a car based system that is full of roads and highways to make traveling by car easier. Also, in today’s society people do just about everything in their car. And finally, having a car in the USA is slowly becoming expected and if you do not have a car it can be an inconvenience especially living out in more rural areas where there is not as much means of public transportation.
I really enjoyed the Skype conversation with Simon and Jon. The things that I walked away with from the conversation was the discussion about community. Simon pointed out How Albania has this rich sense of community everything is within walking distance. Where in America you have Americans who can go a whole week without truly interacting with another human if they don’t want to. My entire life I have grown up in GA and after that class I really thought about the fact that back home and here at school if I don’t want to be bothered I don’t have to be. I get in my car drive to Walmart buy a box of cereal go to SELF checkout and go home. I think it is amazing that in Albania its coffee shops and bakeries. I think Simon and Jon brought forth that there is a deeper sense of community people know each other and their families in Albania and I though that was a beautiful thing. The next thing that stood out to me would be how things are portrayed in Albania vs. America one of my classmates ( I cant think of his name) mentioned that seriousness of the Cold War and how that is still a topic of discussion in Albania where in America we have seen many wars and for the most part the chatter, the news reports, and the hype of that war goes away with the war. I think that goes back to rhetoric and how things are being presented in the media. The conversation made me really think about America and how things are set up. How things are painted and how long something will be a topic of discussion.
The Skype conversation with Simon and Jon was very interesting to me. There were a few things that really stuck out to me.
1. The fact that children didn’t have to learn in Albania is crazy to me! It is really all up to them to learn what they want to know, and if they want to read, they have to go through the trouble of getting the books translated. This just shows me that we really take education for granted. How many of us could say that we would go through the trouble of getting things translated just to be able to read something?
2. While we were comparing “city life” of Albania versus “city life” of America, I couldn’t help but think of different places in America, rather than just America as a whole. For instance, everyone talked about how America is not a place where you can just get around without having a car and how everyone doesn’t know everyone, but in Albania you do and can. Obviously we can’t get all around the country without a car and know everyone in the country; however, when I think about my town, I know everyone there and I can walk wherever it is I need to go in my town. Also, people in New York pretty much walk everywhere. So I just had a hard time grasping that point because it’s hard for me to think of America as a whole because it and its cities are so diverse. I guess I would have to experience Albania in order to understand.
I loved talking to Jon and Simon the other week. Hearing them and Dr. Amy talk to each other made it seem like my professor was much more fabulous than other professors on the GSU campus. As a Middle Grades Education major and a minor in Latin and hoping to be certified to teach Latin, learning a little bit about the Albanian culture is what stuck out to me the most. Jon and Simon spoke of how there were small little communities that relied on each other and how the members of the communities almost never ventured outside of their groups. I am very curious about how the education system works within each of these communities especially in the k-12 setting. I went to 3 different elementary schools and of those schools the only one were I felt a sense of community was the one where the school was actually located inside the neighborhood that I lived in so we were all in Girl Scouts together and all on the same swim team and a bunch of us even went to the same church. My other elementary schools, my middle school, and both of my high schools were much larger scale and had students who lived an hour away from me and I would never possibly bump into them on the street. If the schools are very much based on the sense of community that the rest of Albania is, are the student closer knit? Is there less discrimination and more acceptance? I feel that working in a school where the majority of the students’ families have known each other for generations could decrease a lot of the disrespect and discrimination that is seen in American schools.
Cities are physical manifestations of the desires of people who plan them. Those decisions are expressions of power. For instance, American cities are built around cars and business infrastructure. As America is the lynchpin of world finance and economics those in power here communicate their desire to maintain this position by how they allot most public space for commerce.