User:Tom
From UANotebook
Contents |
biographies
Ographer & Urbiculturalist
- ethnography
- geography
- photography
- phonography
- cartography
new UA about bio
... received an MLIS from the University of Washington's Information School in December 2005. His Master's thesis research consisted of an ethnographic study of the information behaviors, information grounds, and cultural identity of Seattle's Polish community. Additionally, he has nurtured interests in architecture, historic preservation, urban planning, and human and cultural geography. Tom worked in the UW Library's Special Collections division processing and researching archival photograph collections. Rounding out Tom's intellectual and professional interests are radio production and broadcasting, study of radio history as it relates to new media , and oral histories.
Although forever a native and patriotic Chicagoan, Tom has fully accepted his adopted Seattle home. In his spare time, he enjoys taking frivolous road trips -- having visited 43 states and 6 provinces. These trips have yielded an absurd collection of photographs, ephemera, and journal writing. He builds Art Cars and found-object, assemblage pieces that some have called "art".
old UA About bio
... received an MLIS from the University of Washington's Information School. His Master's thesis research consisted of an ethnographic study of the information behaviors and cultural identity of Seattle's Polish community. Additionally, he has nurtured interests in architecture, historic preservation, urban planning, and human and cultural geography. Tom currently works in the UW Library's Special Collections division processing and researching archival photograph collections. Rounding out Tom's intellectual and professional interests are radio production and broadcasting, study of radio history as it relates to new media , and oral histories.
Although forever a native and patriotic Chicagoan, Tom has fully accepted his adopted Seattle home. In his spare time, he enjoys taking frivolous road trips -- having visited 43 states and 6 provinces. These trips have yielded an absurd collection of photographs, ephemera, and journal writing. He builds Art Cars and found-object, assemblage pieces that some have called "art". After graduation, Tom plans to take a year "sabbatical" before diving back into school for PhD study in Geography.
one-hundred word bio
Tom Dobrowolsky entertains interests in urban communication, information behavior in public contexts, popular culture, (third) place-making, intersections of technology and place, representations of authority in space, and the reclamation and re-appropriation of public spaces. He holds an MLIS from the University of Washington and is currently pursuing a PhD in the Program in the Built Environment at the same institution. He is an avid photographer and phonographer interested not only with their technical aspects but also concerned with their ethical use in both academic research as well as daily life. He enjoys walking the streets and engaging in public conversations.
built environment bio
BS, Natural Resource & Environmental Science, Univ. of Illinois, 1996
MLIS, Library & Information Science, Univ. of Washington, 2005
My research interests fall broadly into the categories of urban geography and landscape communication: the intersection of people, information, and space. I am interested in how we communicate in and with space as well as how we can "read" the built landscape as a text in order to uncover its subtle meanings and hidden agendas. More specifically, I am interested in how meanings are produced, presented, and interpreted by various users of places and how agendas are built-in by designers & planners and enforced by regulatory agencies. Furthermore, I am intrigued by how people perceive, assess, appropriate, and assert authority within the complex visual, auditory, and spatial din of built spaces. Moreover, I want to examine the shifting boundaries that define public versus private spaces, with special focus on the liminal areas in between.
As an archivist, I want to document the multiple conversations recorded in the frequently ephemeral artifacts of communication left behind in our public spaces. As an emerging scholar, I want to analyze these narratives by incorporating social science methods into studies of public spaces, placemaking, and urban contexts. My desire is to illuminate networks of communication, especially among marginalized populations, and the roles that various actors and stakeholders--from transgressive to official--play in the cultural maps of our built environments.
My pedagogic goals include encouraging students to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to make sense of the subtleties in everyday places, and to critically assess their physical and social surroundings. I believe in balancing theory by testing it with first-hand observation in the field. Moreover, with the growing ubiquity of electronic technologies, I am eager to debate and explore the new ethical challenges, as well as opportunities, that they pose to research and scholarship.
In focusing on communication through non-traditional forms and novel expressions, I hope to promote a form of "urban/landscape literacy" that will give researchers, planners, and citizens the tools to better interpret our cities and to create more humane places. As cities face new challenges and growing pressures, I hope that my work will lead to places that are conducive to a congenial social climate, that are sustainable, and that facilitate a better quality of life.
aparat films bio
Tom Dobrowolsky holds a Masters in Library & Information Science from the University of Washington, where his thesis work resulted in an ethnography of Seattle's Polish community. He is currently pursuing his PhD in the Program in the Built Environment where his teaching and research focuses on public memory, public spaces, communication, and urban geography. As a media geek, Tom enjoys photography and audio recording. He grew up listening to strange noises and voices as his father spoke to people around the world through amateur radio. Tom occasionally reads for the Fifth Saturday Audio Theater which adapts literary works for the radio service of the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. His love of documentary, narrative, and story-telling, especially with respect to marginalized groups, brings him to this project.
buzzwords
research interests
- urban visual culture
- cultural and urban geography
- urban communication (in, about, and with public space)
- human information behavior in space and place (public contexts)
- information grounds, developing typology
- "social traffic" (see william h. whyte)
- transgression and insurgency in public spaces
- insurgent public spaces
- representations and negotiation of authority
- reclamation and (re)appropriation of spaces by authoritative/"common" as well as public/private actors and stakeholders
- ICT mediation of space and place
- placemaking, third places,
- ethics of spatial research, observation, and technology.
frameworks and methods
- reading landscapes as text
- ethnography: traditional, visual, aural (photography, phonography)
- "perambulatory investigations"
