Sharing a sense of place.

Aside from business seminars, it's been ever so long that I've sat in a classroom with real students. Until the other day. My neighbor, a professor of anthropology at Prescott College, invited me for an informal, end of quarter class session dedicated to a sense of place, that place being central Arizona.

The students, most of whom had been in Prescott all of four months, were to select a favorite or interesting aspect of the local scene and share their sense of it by whatever means or media seemed most appropriate. The idea was to step back from the academic and change to a more direct, gut experience.

Here, Rhuta, the one native-born-and-raised Arizonan, confers with the professor...

...then, once her computer was synced with the house system, proceeded with a slide show of doors from all over town, doors representing entrances to new experiences and people. Interesting: I had also photographed some of the doors she collected, including the Cortez street entrance above. However, her deepest connection with place was Buckskin Canyon, a slot canyon off the Paria River (below) where she returns time and again to hike, camp and commune.

Brie, a newcomer from Maine, created collages to catch the feel of our boom town (above) and her joy in African dance participation (below).

Christine (at right, playing the guitar) performs what I call her Talkin' Granite Basin Lake Blues, all about how she often slipped into the basin at night, long after closing hours, enjoying the solitude -- and the uncountable shooting stars visible away from the city.

The paintings and breakfast remains belong to Sarah, a Philadelphian who had never seen real mountains until she flew out to Arizona to meet Prescott College. She too had slides -- a kaleidoscope of her many new experiences of Prescott (and those mountains, as seen from the window of a plane.) Oh, yes, the hat. It's a real beauty. She bought it from the shop on Whiskey Row and, like me, she also took pictures in the shop despite the "no photographs" sign.

Fox is a poet and a passionate one. His prime presentation wrapped around Thumb Butte and its sunsets.

For the record, the course is titled Contemporary Issues in Anthropology; the text (shown in the top picture) is History Is In The Land, which explores the oral traditions that link four contemporary tribes -- Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and San Carlos Apache -- to Arizona's San Pedro Valley. My neighbor and I both share a fascination with a sense of place -- as I'm sure my readers are well aware.

More Academics: well, sorta. The dotter has just written a wonderful, very funny post on what it takes to get homework done.