Writing the Landscape

with Kathryn Remlinger

Date: Saturday, June 8, 2024, 10:00 a.m–1:00 p.m

Tuition: $75

This workshop includes lunch at 1:00 p.m.

The landscape is shaped by meanings reflected in colors, images, text, sounds, and signs that make up the natural and built environments surrounding us. Language and image are central to these meanings, and together they create a “languagescape” that make a place recognizable and identifiable. Workshop attendees will apply participant observation methods and mindful writing practices to describe the landscape surrounding Ox-Bow and analyze reflected meanings. Optionally, participants may incorporate collage, illustration, and/or found objects to their writing.

Kathryn Remlinger’s work relies on participant observation, ethnography, and mindful writing practices. Her research and publications are grounded in socio-cultural linguistic and linguistic landscape approaches to examine the role of language in meaning-making, place-making, and identity performance. Her publications include the book, Yooper Talk: Dialect as Identity in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and academic and popular press articles. She has taught writing for nearly 40 years to middle-schoolers, university students, and workshop participants, and for over 10 years she has integrated mindfulness practices into her daily routine and teaching. She has participated in and facilitated mindfulness workshops at Grand Valley State University and Paradigm Wellness Center in Grand Haven, Michigan. She holds a PhD in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from Michigan Technological University with a concentration in sociolinguistics.

Image courtesy of the artist.