Hobart and William Smith Colleges

3 September 2003 Memorializing 9/11 and The Education of Public Spaces, Live from Shivas Dance Floor

The first event in the fall Fisher Center lecture series, the theme of which is Global Education, Educating Globally, will be offered at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the Geneva Room. The topic is Memorializing 9/11: Public Spaces as Public Educators. A roundtable discussion with the speakers will follow the next morning (Sept. 11), at 8:45 a.m. in the Fisher Center, Demarest Hall room 212.

David Holbrooke 87 and Timothy Speed Levitch will present the film Live from Shivas Dance Floor and give a talk, followed by Setha Low. Low will discuss After the Trade Center: Searching for Spaces of Security and Hope.

Producer David Holbrooke, a member of the Hobart Class of 1987, will present his new short documentary, Live from Shivas Dance Floor, along with the films featured tour guide, philosopher, revolutionary, rock and roll scribe Timothy Speed Levitch. Premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, the documentary has been described as the most revolutionary proposal for the World Trade Center site. In the documentary, Levitch (of The Cruise) takes viewers on a tour of New York City and New Yorkers philosophy on the life, death, and rebirth of ground zero.' The documentary was directed by Richard Linklater, and has been touring at a number of film festivals. Holbrookes media experience includes NBC Sports, CNBC, CNN and PBS, and he is founder of the television and film production company Giraffe Partners. Levitch, hyperkinetic New York City tour guide, sees New York City as a profound opportunity to understand ourselves. He writes for Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, and other outlets, and recently had published Speedology: Speed on New York on Speed.

Available film and readings (library reserve): Live from Shivas Dance Floor; Speedology

Professor of Environmental Psychology and Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York Setha Lows interests center on cultural aspects of design and the anthropology of space and place, including the landscape of fear. Examining perceptions of security after 9/11, Low has turned this research to questions of imagining the public culture of the future for learning and democracy. Using her ethnographic research from Battery City Park along with interviews with and artwork from New York City school children, Low will address these concerns over public space, education and culture for a country driven to increasing levels of surveillance. Her most recent book Behind the Gates: Security and the New American Dream offers insight into life inside the suburban fortresses of gated communities, illuminating Americans expressed need for security and accompanying trade-offs of insularity, restrictive rules, and little change in safety.

Available readings: Behind the Gates: Security and the New American Dream; The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture; On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture; Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader