Greetings!
Dr. Cowgill and I are starting this blog in January--about a month before our "Mapping [Sub]Cultures" course with you commences--as a way to offer you a glimpse of our creative process as co-teachers and researchers, and also as a way to share with you the nagging questions that inspired us to invent this course in the first place!
The image above is as good a place as any to begin explaining what this course is all about--and why we believe it is important.
The mosaic is on a wall in Bricktown, and it represents the glory days of "Deep Deuce."
As a transplant to Oklahoma City, I was delighted to learn about this part of the city's heritage and I love the idea of educating the public--locals as well as tourists--about this community. But as a rhetorician--someone who studies symbolic communication--I'm intrigued by, among other things, the tidiness of it all, the way this complex community and its history is being packaged and re-presented for our consumption. Most of the area was cleared for a highway project; a few spots are being rebuilt or preserved. When Dr. Cowgill and I wandered the hub of Deep Deuce together we had the same thought: Disneyland --specifically, its "Main Street USA."
We believe that you can learn a lot about a community (such as our own Oklahoma City) by examining how it portrays and locates its subcultures. In this case, we're calling Deep Deuce a "subculture" because it is an historically African-American community that developed during our city's segregationist era, when whites lived in the regions "above" 2nd Street.
Our hope is that you will join us as fellow researchers identifying what "subcultures" look like in Oklahoma City today (is every community its own sort of subculture? or does the "sub" in subculture mean something else?) and that together we can generate some interesting insights into culture, society, and ourselves.
3 comments:
I will try this again. It wiped out my first comments. Julie, Carmen and myself, went to Deep Duece after class Saturday. We met with a gentlemen who grew up around this area and was familiar with it's history. We had a nice walk or mapping. With so many cultures, so much history is lost. I personally believe when you start tearing down "history" and putting new apartments in you loose all your "gut" or "feel" for the history. You can always use your imagination but it does not give you the emotion that walking the cobblestone or walkways does. Looking at a home, or structure and recognizing that each part of it has a story to tell. There are nice pieces of history in the sidewalk at Deep Duece and a few original buildings left. Each had a story to tell. I loved using my imagination to "tell" their story.
I love this project/class we are taking but I believe there is no way we can do it justice or the "history" justice in such a short time frame. My mind is boggled and wish I had more hours in the day to "dig in" so to speak.
Happy Mapping! Pamela Wright
I agree, Pam--it's a complex experience, isn't it, on so many levels. There's so much to discover and not nearly enough time to learn all the stories or to follow all the clues. Hopefully what we're gaining is curiosity . . . enough curiosity to continue learning more after our short course is over. Frankly, I'm already feeling that way about the art project also. I want to make lots of things and take months to do it. It's a real challenge to zero-in on just one sliver. But it's a good challenge because it's forcing me to follow one trail and see what I can make of it. Kind of exciting, really. Thanks for writing!
I have only lived in OKC for ablmost 3 years and I had no idea that there was so much history ll overthe city. I love this class and I can't wait to learn more. The history in Deep Duece is going to be wonderful to learn about. Just being down there for just a few minutes helped me understand where all of the history of the area came from. I am so interested in learned more. Thanks for this great opportunity. Carmen Davis
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