# Childhood in Space: Approaches to How Young People Occupy and Employ the Landscape #### calendar\_today Date and Time **November 18, 2019** 06:30PM - 06:30PM EST #### pin\_drop Location **Room 133, Barker Center** ## : **![colorful shapes](/sites/g/files/omnuum4936/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/mahindra/files/ludics.jpg?itok=8bjcGTGY)** ## **Speakers: Herb Childress, Author and Diana Ramirez-Jasso, Boston Architectural College** In this seminar, Dr. Ramirez-Jasso and Dr. Childress will discuss some of the ways in which young people have been thought to express agency over the physical spaces of their lives. From Rousseau's educational landscapes and the original German kindergarten, to the 21st century phenomena of skate parks, hangouts and flash mobs, we will examine young people's spatiality, and ask the seminar participants to bring examples of their own that might expand or challenge our understanding of children in space. Seminar participants are asked to bring examples of young people's use of the physical world, and to consider how those examples can illuminate larger meanings of play, social life, and apprenticeship into adult culture. More specifically, Dr. Ramirez-Jasso: Exploring the historical imagery of seeds, gardens, and cultivation in the realm of early childhood education, Dr. Ramirez-Jasso examines the mythology of the "natural" child that permeated discussions of early European pedagogy. Through discussions of educational technology and labor, she engages Enlightenment theories that redefined children's and women's right to "occupy" space. Dr. Herb Childress: Dr. Childress will discuss some of his research among American teenagers, and the ways in which their social lives are expressed (and constrained) spatially. He is especially interested in questions raised by a necessarily territorial approach to occupancy within tenure-based legal and financial modes of adult organization. Speaker biographies Herb Childress is the author of *The Adjunct Underclass* (U. Chicago Press, 2019) and *The PhDictionary* (U. Chicago Press, 2016), as well as *Landscapes of Betrayal, Landscapes of Joy: Curtisville in the Lives of its Teenagers* (SUNY Press, 2000). He received his PhD in architecture from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, after an undergraduate degree in architecture from Berkeley. He has taught at Duke University and at the Boston Architectural College, been a senior administrator and accreditation manager in higher education, and worked in private design research practice. He is now a full-time writer, at work on both nonfiction and fiction from his home in rural Vermont. Diana Ramirez-Jasso is currently a faculty member in the History and Theory of Design and former provost of The Boston Architectural College. Her research interests span the history and theory of interiors, buildings, gardens, and landscapes, particularly as they intersect with discourses stemming from literature, philosophy, pedagogy, and art. Diana's work has focused on the perceived relationships between designed spaces and the shaping of human subjectivity through a study of the historical encounters between the architecture, gardens, education, and the history of childhood. Diana received a PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture and a Master of Arts in Architecture from Harvard University, and a Master of Science in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art from MIT. She also holds a professional degree in architecture from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente in Mexico. She has taught at Harvard, MIT, and the ITESO, and has received numerous recognitions and awards, including a Thesis Prize from MIT and a Fulbright fellowship. *Co-sponsored by The Engagement Lab, Emerson College and Citizen TALES Commons* See also:- [ Seminar ](/event-type/seminar) - [ Ludics ](/seminars/ludics) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://mahindrahumanities.harvard.edu/node/1306770/event-feed.ics) Copy link link