Landscapes of Betrayal, Landscapes of Joy: Curtisville in the Lives of its Teenagers

by Herb Childress

Overview

Looks at how teenagers in one small town use spaces and give value and meaning to specific places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791445785
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	04/20/2000
Series:	SUNY series in Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Herb Childress is an architectural consultant and has a Ph.D. in Environment-Behavior Studies from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface

1. Woven Stories, Woven Lives

2. Reading Curtisville

Part One - Around Town

3. The American Dream

4. The Working Life

5. I Love this Car, Man

6. One Night in Manoa

7. The Dead Zone

8. Birthday at Oyster Beach

9. They're Breaking Up that Old Gang of Mine

Part Two - At School

10. Kirk's School Days

11. Free Public Assembly

12. Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain

13. Take Your Seats, Please

14. The Domain of the Greeks

15. The Passion Pit

16. Convenience Store Orphans

Part Three - At Home

17. Negotiations and Boundaries

18. Twelve Rooms

19. The Irrelevant Neighborhood

20. Other People's Houses I: Dad's House

21. Other People's Houses II: Tami's Weekend

22. Other People's Houses III: Julian's House

Part Four - After the Fact

23. The Hidden Program of the High School (or Six Metaphors in Search of a Box)

24. A Teenage Acre

25. November 18th, Where Joy was Found

26. Collaborators

27. Rereading Curtisville

Notes

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Stuart C. Aitken

Childress weaves engaging stories through and around the teenagers whose everyday lives are represented by this book. The power of his narrative resides in part on his ability to raise profound issues from seemingly mundane occurrences. He avoids over-theorizing the teenagers' experiences and yet, at the same time, he is able to highlight their senses of self and place in the world. And the awful context that surfaces from his stories is that these teenagers are, for the most part, betrayed by our adult world (how it is planned, designed, and institutionalized) and the society (family, home, and community) we embrace.
—(Stuart C. Aitken, author of Family Fantasies and Community Space)

Douglas D. Paterson

Our social and physical environments are a mess. Teenagers are sorely neglected, and Childress conveys the feeling that there is much that could so easily be done if we weren't so 'bloody fearful' about life. Educators, planners, designers, and parents should all read this book.
—(Douglas D. Paterson, University of British Columbia)

Lynn Paxson

Childress is a good storyteller; the dialogue and the vignettes are compelling and evocative.
—(Lynn Paxson, Iowa State University)

Editorial Reviews

"Childress weaves engaging stories through and around the teenagers whose everyday lives are represented by this book. The power of his narrative resides in part on his ability to raise profound issues from seemingly mundane occurrences. He avoids over-theorizing the teenagers' experiences and yet, at the same time, he is able to highlight their senses of self and place in the world. And the awful context that surfaces from his stories is that these teenagers are, for the most part, betrayed by our adult world (how it is planned, designed, and institutionalized) and the society (family, home, and community) we embrace." — Stuart C. Aitken, author of Family Fantasies and Community Space

"Our social and physical environments are a mess. Teenagers are sorely neglected, and Childress conveys the feeling that there is much that could so easily be done if we weren't so 'bloody fearful' about life. Educators, planners, designers, and parents should all read this book." — Douglas D. Paterson, University of British Columbia

"Childress is a good storyteller; the dialogue and the vignettes are compelling and evocative." — Lynn Paxson, Iowa State University

From the Publisher