Place
Week of March 27, 2007

In this hour, we explore Place. We look at what connects us to certain places and not to others, and what happens when we lose that special relationship to our surroundings. Guests include Dr. Susan Ossman, visiting professor of anthropology at Georgetown University and an expert on media and migration; Dr. Kent Curtis, director of education at the Walden Woods Project, a land conservancy based on the environmental philosophy of writer Henry David Thoreau; and Dr. Roberta Feldman, architect, psychologist, and director of the City Design Center in Chicago. We also hear from a New York office worker whose sense of place was shattered by the World Trade Center attacks, attend a "feng shui" design session at our production facilities, and learn about life in cyberspace with reporter Ellen Horne. Plus, commentary by John Hockenberry.

Host Dr. Fred Goodwin begins with an essay on the places, and memories of places, which have shaped his life. Dr. Goodwin recalls summer excursions to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a happy and relaxing constant throughout his life. He also shares the special sense of community he feels watching sports events with other fans - especially Washington Redskins football games. Surprisingly, airports have come to feel a little like home for Dr. Goodwin, if only because he spends so much time in them. Finally, Dr. Goodwin shares the newest "place" which has become important to him: anywhere he is with one or more of his 10 grandchildren.

Sometimes, our very familiary with a place endows it with special meaning for us. Dr. Goodwin interviews Dr. Susan Ossman in a place familiar to many Americans - a Starbucks coffee shop. Dr. Ossman believes the intentional similarity of chains like Starbucks make them a welcoming sight to many Americans traveling abroad because travelers know exactly what to expect - a level of uncertainty and discomfort is removed.

Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Ossman also discuss the importance of sacred sites, which reflect multiple narratives of peoples and social groups. They note the development of the World Trade towers site as a point of pilgrimage for many Americans. Finally, Dr. Ossman talks about the effects of migration on a person's sense of place, and she shares her own childhood experience as one of six sisters constantly switching rooms and roommates.

To contact Dr. Ossman, please write to Dr. Susan Ossman, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University - ICC 241, Washington, DC 20057-1020. Or visit: http://www.ccasonline.org/.

We leave the comfortable familiarity of Starbucks to hear the poignant first-person account of Michelle, a New York city resident who lost her workplace and her sense of home in the World Trade Center attacks. Michelle says she hasn't returned to her old apartment in Battery Park City since that time, and that, for her, New York no longer feels like the city she once knew.

Many people identify with places in nature even more than with the created environments where they live and work. Nineteenth century naturalist and writer Henry David Thoreau was certainly one of them. In our next segment, The Infinite Mind's Deryl Davis talks with Dr. Kent Curtis, director of education at the Walden Woods Project, a land conservation organization dedicated to Thoreau's ideals of preserving nature and the sense of place.

Dr. Curtis describes Thoreau's connection to Walden Pond, where the writer spent two years living by himself and recording his observations about nature and the inner life. For Thoreau, knowing and appreciating one's home environment was essential for understanding one's self. The rootlessness of many Americans, even in the mid-nineteenth century, was troubling for the author. Thoreau's account of his experience in the woods, Walden, has established the pond and environs as a special place for many Americans.

To contact Dr. Curtis, please write to Dr. Kent Curtis, director of education, Walden Woods Project, 44 Baker Farms Road, Lincoln, MA 01773-3004. Or visit: http://www.walden.org/.

After a short break, reporter Ellen Horne takes us into the world of cyberspace, where people connect with one another through text, icons, and a computer screen. Horne asks scholars whether there can be such a thing as online "community," and whether digital interaction can be as "real" as face-to-face meeting. We hear from Professor Judith Donath of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who suggests that our notion of what it means to connect with another person is changing. And confessed cyber "geek" Dave Johnson says he worries about people attempting to replace real community with virtual community.

To contact Professor Donath, please write to Professor Judith Donath, The Media Laboratory, Building E15, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Or visit: http://www.media.mit.edu/.

Next, Dr. Fred Goodwin talks with architect and psychologist Dr. Roberta Feldman, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, about the relationship between people and the buildings where they live and work. Dr. Feldman suggests there is a psychology of place which built environments can reinforce or sometimes weaken. Dr. Feldman also talks about the ways in which building design can promote the treatment of illness, citing the example of designing for Alzheimer's patients.

To contact Dr. Feldman, please write to Dr. Roberta Feldman, director, City Design Center, 820 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 330, Chicago, IL 60607. Or visit: http://www.uic.edu/aa/cdc/files/home1.html.

We've been considering our connection to the places where we live and work. Chinese culture developed an art for this thousands of years ago called feng shui. Zaihong Shen, founder of Feng Shui New York, visits The Infinite Mind offices and gives us some pointers on how redesign our space for maximum creativity and efficiency.

To contact Ms. Shen, please write to Ms. Zaihong Shen, Feng Shui Gallery, 111 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002. Or visit: http://www.fengshuinewyork.com/.

Finally, commentator John Hockenberry thinks about the details that make up a place and remembers one place where his life changed forever.

--Deryl Davis

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