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after office hours + one week left

Thanks to everyone who came to office hours today (even those who came on campus instead of online, that’s fine). Your questions were genuinely interesting—several of you are working on things I want to keep thinking about, which is exactly what these conversations should do.

I’m sorry I couldn’t get to everyone. A few sessions ran longer because the problems you were working through deserved the time. If you didn’t get in today, you’re welcome to try again next Wednesday (January 28, 10:30-11:30)—though that’s deadline day, so it’s really for last-minute panic questions, not substantial rethinking. For more substantial questions, write me an email.

One week left.

A few things I noticed in today’s conversations that might help you this week:

If you’re stuck on structure: Stop trying to organize the whole paper. Just make sure each section does ONE clear thing. If you can’t name what a section does, it probably doesn’t belong.

Example: Don’t have a section called “Context” that covers history + current demographics + policy + urban planning. That’s four things. Pick one. If you need them all, they’re four separate sections with four clear purposes.

If you’re worried your argument isn’t “strong enough”: Strong doesn’t mean certain. Strong means honest. If you’re genuinely uncertain about something, say that. Hedging is weak. Acknowledging limits is strong.

Example: Weak: “It could perhaps be argued that maybe this practice reflects a kind of adaptation.” Strong: “I can’t determine whether this is adaptation or resistance. The practice looks like both, which suggests the categories themselves might not work here.”

If you’re trying to include everything: You can’t. Choose. What’s the smallest version of this paper that still makes your point? Cut everything else. You can always add back if you have space.

Example: If you’re writing about informal economies, you don’t need to also cover language politics AND housing policy AND cultural identity. Pick one thread. Follow it through. The other stuff can be one sentence: “This also connects to language and housing, but that’s beyond this paper’s scope.”

If you’re paralyzed by the conclusion: It doesn’t have to wrap everything up. It can open a question. It can acknowledge what you couldn’t resolve. It can point to what you’d need to know next.

Example: Instead of “In conclusion, this paper has shown that informal economies are complex and require more research,” try: “I still don’t know why some of these practices remain informal while others don’t. Answering that would require understanding who benefits from opacity—which I can’t see from where I’m standing.”

If you haven’t started writing yet: Start badly. Write the version you know is wrong. You can’t revise what doesn’t exist.

Example: Write “This paper is about how refugees navigate bureaucracy in Berlin and I think it’s important because…” Yes, that’s a terrible first sentence. Write it anyway. You’ll delete it later. But it gets you moving.

One practical thing: On Sunday or Monday, read your whole draft aloud to yourself. Slowly. Or what I like to do (even with your completed papers): Use text to speech in your text editor or a relevant tool. You’ll hear what doesn’t work. Fix those parts.

You’ll notice: “This sentence is 47 words long and I ran out of breath.” “I used ‘however’ four times in one paragraph.” “I have no idea what this section is actually saying.” “This sounds like I’m trying too hard to sound academic.”

Next Wednesday’s office hours (10:30-11:30) are your last chance for questions. After that, you just have to submit.

Final session Wednesday + office hours through deadline

Quick reminder: Our final session is Wednesday, January 14, 10:30-11:30 (haha, that wasn’t intentional, it was supposed to be the normal 10:15… but no worries)

Since we last met in December, you’ve had time to write. Some of you came to December office hours, many didn’t (that’s fine). Now we’re in the final stretch.

For Wednesday’s session, bring:

  1. Your draft (whatever state—messy is expected)
  2. One specific question or problem you’re actually stuck on

Not “I need feedback on my draft.” That’s too general. More like:

  • “My introduction explains my whole argument—should it?”
  • “I have three possible readers and it’s making everything muddy”
  • “This section just lists what scholars say—what should it actually do?”
  • “I think I have two different papers here—how do I decide?”

The session will be:

  • Small groups: troubleshoot one specific problem each (30 min)
  • Whole group: discuss what you learned from the experiments you tried (20 min)
  • Quick individual check-ins: your plan for the final two weeks (10 min)

Continued support after Wednesday:

If you want to talk through a specific problem or decision point in your draft, I’m offering individual consultations online in my personal webex room on:

  • Wednesday, January 21, 10:30-11:30
  • Wednesday, January 28, 10:30-11:30 (deadline day—last-minute questions)

Ideally 10-15 minutes per person or in small groups. To sign up, just email me with one sentence about what you want to discuss.

Your deadline: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (5000 words)

You have two weeks after our session. Use them. Write messy, then clean up. Ask for help when you’re stuck. Don’t wait until January 27 to discover a problem.

See you Wednesday.


Part 1: Individual Diagnostic (15 minutes)

Setup: Everyone works silently on their own draft.

Task: “Find the sentence in your draft you believe most and the sentence you believe least. Mark them.”

Then write (just for yourself):

  • Why do you believe the first one?
  • Why don’t you believe the second one?
  • Is the sentence you don’t believe doing necessary work? Or is it there because you think you’re “supposed” to say it?

The point: Often our problems are sentences we included because they sound “academic” but we don’t actually stand behind them. This helps them locate their real voice vs. their performed voice.


Part 2: Test Your Necessary Parts (30 minutes)

Setup: Pairs. Each person takes 15 minutes, then switch.

Task: “Tell your partner: What is your paper trying to do in the world? Not ‘what is it about’ – what work is it trying to do?”

Then: “Look at your outline or table of contents. For each section, ask: Is this section actually necessary for that work? Or is it there because papers are ‘supposed’ to have it?”

Partner’s job: Push back. “Are you sure you need that section? What happens if you cut it?” “What would you lose if it wasn’t there?”

Last 5 minutes together: Each person names one section they might cut or drastically shorten.

The point: Often we include sections (literature review, theory section, context chapter) because they’re conventional, not because they’re necessary. This helps them see what’s actually load-bearing vs. what’s scaffolding they can remove.


Part 3: Whole Class Provocation (15 minutes)

Setup: Everyone back together in a circle.

Prompt: “You have two weeks. Your paper will not be perfect. So let’s talk about: What are you giving yourself permission to NOT do?

Go around. Everyone shares ONE thing they’re explicitly deciding not to do/fix/perfect:

  • “I’m not going to make my theory section longer”
  • “I’m not going to find three more sources”
  • “I’m not going to fix the conclusion”
  • “I’m not going to rewrite the whole thing in third person”
  • “I’m not going to smooth out the contradiction in my argument”

After everyone shares, discuss:

  • What’s the difference between “good enough” and “giving up”?
  • What assumptions about academic writing are you still carrying that you need to drop?
  • What if finishing “badly” is actually finishing honestly?

The point: Permission to not be perfect. Permission to make strategic choices about what matters. Reframing “finishing” as making decisions, not achieving perfection.

After you submit

Your paper is due January 28. Let’s say you submit it. What happens to it then?

I don’t mean grades or feedback. I mean: who do you imagine reading it?

Not “academics in general.” Specifically. Picture someone—a specific person—sitting down with your paper. Where are they? What time of day? Why are they reading it? What do they already know? What are they hoping to find?

Now picture a different reader. Someone else who might encounter your work. Different location, different context, different reasons for reading.

Do these two people read the same paper? Or does your paper become something different depending on who’s reading?

Task (don’t write this, just think about it):

Your paper makes an argument about something in Berlin—some tension, some mixing, some question about what survives or how things coexist. But your argument only matters if it travels beyond the specific case.

So: what would have to be true elsewhere for your Berlin observation to matter there too?

Not “this proves a universal truth.” Rather: under what conditions does what you noticed in Berlin become relevant in Cairo, in Istanbul, in Ramallah, in London, in Kreuzberg vs. Neukölln?

Bring to final session: One sentence: “My argument travels to X when/if Y is true.”

This isn’t about generalizing. It’s about recognizing the conditions under which local knowledge becomes portable.

Give your draft to someone who will hate it

You’ve revised your draft. You know who your readers are supposed to be. You’ve made the instability visible (you think). The costs are clear (you hope).

Now test it.

But not with someone sympathetic. Not with a friend who studies the same thing you do. Not with someone who already cares about your topic.

Give it to someone who will hate it.

Someone who thinks your field is irrelevant. Someone who doesn’t care about Berlin or the Middle East or whatever tension you’re writing about. Someone who has no reason to keep reading past the first paragraph.

Ask them: “Where did you stop caring? What sentence made you think ‘so what?'”

Their answer is a truth. Not a truth about whether your work is good. A truth about whether your instability actually creates costs for readers who don’t already care.

Because here’s the thing: the readers who already care will read your work no matter what. They’re not the test.

The test is the reader who has no reason to care. Can you make them care anyway?

That’s what costs and benefits are for.

Find that reader. Give them your draft. Listen to where they stop.

Then revise.

The Editor’s Hands

There is a café I dream myself to when writing isn’t working. The coffee is fine. What I like is the window. It faces a courtyard where an old woman waters her plants each morning. She touches the leaves as she goes. Not checking for anything. Just touching.

I think about her hands sometimes when I think about editors. What they do with a text. How it’s different from what readers do.

A reader tells you what they received. They are honest, if you’re lucky. They say: I got confused here. I stopped caring there. I didn’t understand who this was for. This is useful. This is data. But a reader leaves and takes their confusion with them. You’re alone again with the draft.

An editor stays.


I had an editor once who read a piece I’d written about my father. It was overwrought. I knew it was overwrought but I didn’t know what else it could be. She didn’t tell me it was overwrought. She asked me about the kitchen. The kitchen in the piece was described in one sentence. She wanted to know what the light was like in that kitchen. What it smelled like in the morning. Whether the chairs scraped when you pulled them out.

I told her. She said: write that.

The next draft was better. Not because she fixed anything. Because she saw something I hadn’t finished seeing.


Feedback tells you where you are. Editing helps you get somewhere.

This is not a small difference. It’s the difference between a mirror and a companion. A mirror shows you your face. A companion walks with you and points at things. Look at that. Have you noticed this. What if you went that way instead.

A good editor is curious about your work in a way that makes you curious about it again. They ask questions you didn’t know to ask. Not because they’re smarter. Because they’re outside. They see the shape of the thing. You’re inside, too close, your nose against the wall. They stand back and say: did you know there’s a door over there?


I think about the old woman with her plants. She’s not checking if they’re healthy. She knows they’re healthy. She grew them. She’s in conversation with them. The touching is part of the growing.

Editing is like that. It’s not assessment. It’s cultivation.


When I teach writing, students want feedback. They want to know if it’s good. They want to know what’s wrong. These are reasonable wants. But they’re not the wants that make writing better.

What makes writing better is someone who sits with your mess and sees something in it you couldn’t see. Someone who asks: what’s this doing here? Not accusingly. Curiously. Someone who says: this sentence—I keep coming back to it. I don’t know why. Do you know why?

And you look at the sentence and you realize you don’t know why either. But now you want to find out.


The best editors I’ve had made me want to write. Not made me feel bad about what I’d written. Made me want to keep going. Made me believe there was something in the draft worth finding.

This is rare. Most feedback makes you want to hide. Most feedback says: here’s what’s wrong. Fix it. The fixing feels like punishment. The draft becomes a problem to be solved rather than a thing to be grown.

But an editor says: there’s something here. I can feel it. It’s not quite visible yet. Let’s find it.

And suddenly the draft is alive again. Suddenly you’re not fixing. You’re discovering.


There’s a scene in a film I love. Two people are cooking together. One is experienced, one is learning. The experienced one doesn’t give instructions. She puts her hand over his hand on the knife and they cut together. The motion transfers. The knowledge moves through touch.

This is what editing feels like when it works. Not instructions from outside. A kind of doing-together. The editor’s hand over yours. The cut becomes possible because you’re not alone in making it.

Feedback is someone watching you cook and telling you the onions are burning. Editing is someone at the stove with you, tasting the broth, saying: more salt, and handing you the salt.


I don’t mean to be harsh on feedback. Feedback has its place. You need to know when things aren’t landing. You need the honest reader who says: I stopped caring on page three. That’s valuable. That’s necessary.

But it’s not sufficient.

Because after the reader leaves, you still have to write. You still have to figure out what page three could be. And for that you need something more than data. You need a kind of faith. Faith that there’s something worth finding. Faith that the mess can become something.

An editor holds that faith for you when you can’t hold it yourself.


The old woman finishes watering. She stands for a moment looking at her plants. Not inspecting. Just looking. The way you look at something you’ve been in relationship with for a long time. Something you know isn’t finished. Something still becoming.

She goes inside. The plants stay in the sun. Growing.


I think the difference is this: feedback is a transaction. You give me writing, I give you reaction. We’re done.

Editing is a relationship. We’re in this together. We’re both trying to find out what this thing wants to be. Neither of us knows yet. But we’re looking. And the looking together changes what we find.


There’s a loneliness to writing. You sit alone. You make choices alone. No one can tell you if the choices are right because no one knows what you’re trying to make. Sometimes you don’t know either.

An editor doesn’t fix the loneliness. But they witness it. They say: I see you in there, trying. And they reach in a hand.

Not to pull you out. To be with you in the dark.

Until slowly, something starts to take shape. Something neither of you made alone.


I went back to the essay about my father. The one my editor asked about the kitchen. I wrote three pages about the light. About the smell of toast. About the scrape of chairs and the particular blue of the gas flame on the stove.

My father was barely in those pages. And yet he was everywhere.

She didn’t tell me to do this. She asked me about a kitchen. I answered.

That’s the difference. Feedback tells you what isn’t working. An editor asks a question that opens a door. You walk through it. What’s on the other side—that was always yours. You just couldn’t see it from where you were standing.

Now you can.

Who Are You Writing For?

November 19, 2025 | 10:15-11:45

This session marked the first draft sharing for the course. Rather than traditional feedback, we focused on the gap between what writers think they’re communicating and what readers actually receive—particularly around instability, costs, and readers.


Opening Discussion: What Do You Want When You Share Writing? (10:15-10:40)

We began by asking students to reflect on what they actually want when they share unfinished writing.

Responses included:

  • “Tell me if it makes sense”
  • “Tell me what’s missing”
  • “Tell me it’s good”
  • “Tell me whether to keep going”
  • “Find the problems”
  • “Understand what I was trying to say”
  • “Tell me if anyone would care about this”

The key insight: These are completely different—and often incompatible—asks.

Some requests assume the idea is right and just needs clarity (“tell me if it makes sense”). Others question whether the whole project is worth doing (“tell me if anyone would care”). Some ask readers to decode the writer’s intentions (“understand what I was trying to say”) while others ask readers to challenge the work (“find the problems”).

The tension: Most writers want readers to validate what they’re trying to do while also telling them what’s wrong. But you can’t have both simultaneously.

The discussion surfaced:

  • Feedback that serves writer anxiety vs. feedback that serves the writing
  • Feedback about what you meant vs. what readers received
  • Feedback that assumes your frame is right vs. questions the frame

The reframe for draft sharing:

Readers should NOT try to understand what the writer meant. Instead, readers report what they actually received.

Not “I think you’re trying to say X”—but “Here’s what I understood.”

Not “This is good/needs work”—but “Here’s where I saw instability” and “Here’s where I didn’t see why I should care.”

The writer’s job: Listen to the gap between intention and reception.


Pair Reading: Mark What You Receive (10:40-11:20)

Students paired up with someone whose topic was different from theirs.

Phase 1: Silent Reading (20 minutes total, 10 per draft)

One person reads the other’s draft in silence, marking three things:

  • Where you see the instability (what doesn’t fit, what contradicts)
  • $ Where you see costs/benefits (why this matters to readers, not to the writer)
  • ? Where you can identify who the readers are (who cares about this?)

If the reader reaches the end without marking all three, that’s important information.

Phase 2: Report What You Received (20 minutes total, 10 per draft)

The reader reports back—but with strict constraints: Only report what you marked. Don’t interpret. Don’t suggest fixes.

Examples:

  • “I saw instability here where you said X contradicted Y”
  • “I didn’t see costs until page 3, and even then I wasn’t sure if they were costs to me or to you”
  • “I couldn’t tell who I was supposed to be as a reader”

The writer’s job: Listen. Don’t explain. Don’t defend. Just hear the gap.

This phase made visible the often-significant distance between what writers thought they communicated (instability, costs, specific readers) and what readers actually received (confusion, vagueness, unclear stakes).


Small Group Pressure Test (11:20-11:40)

Groups of 3-4 (mixed topics) took turns reading their openings aloud (first 1-2 pages).

The group’s role: Be the skeptical reader. Push on everything.

Questions:

  • “Where’s the instability? I don’t see what doesn’t fit.”
  • “So what? Why does that matter to me as a reader?”
  • “Who am I supposed to be? What community cares about this?”
  • “Is this a gap (we don’t know X) or a problem (not knowing X costs us Y)?”
  • “At what sentence would I stop reading? Why?”

This phase pushed beyond politeness. Students practiced being honest readers—the kind who are busy, skeptical, and will stop reading if they don’t immediately see value.

What emerged:

  • Many drafts described interesting observations but didn’t establish instability
  • Costs were often implied rather than explicit
  • Readers were frequently unnamed or too generic (“people interested in Berlin”)
  • The gap problem vs. the gap itself remained unclear in many drafts

Assignment for December 3

You’ve now tested your draft with multiple readers. You know where the gaps are—between what you thought you were communicating and what readers actually received.

Revise your 3-4 pages based on what you learned today.

Your goal:

  • Make the instability visible in the first two paragraphs
  • Show costs that readers bear (not you)
  • Make clear who your readers are (even if implicitly)

The test: Between now and next session, give your revised draft to someone outside this class—a friend, a colleague, anyone. Ask them: “Where would you stop reading and why?”

If they stop before they see the instability and why it matters, keep revising.

Bring the revised draft printed on December 3. We’ll go deeper into how instabilities actually work and how to construct them effectively.


Key Takeaways

  1. Intention ≠ Reception: What you think you’re communicating and what readers receive are often very different.
  2. The gap is the learning: The distance between what you meant and what readers understood shows you what needs work.
  3. Readers report, don’t interpret: The most useful feedback describes what was received, not what the writer “really meant.”
  4. Instability must be unmissable: If readers have to work to find your tension, it’s not clear enough.
  5. Costs must be explicit: Implied stakes don’t work. Readers need to know specifically what they lose if this stays unresolved.
  6. Generic readers = no readers: “People interested in X” isn’t specific enough. Name the actual community.
  7. Skeptical readers are generous readers: Honest pushback helps more than polite validation.

Writing Berlin – Session cancelled today, task for next week

Dear all,

I’m sorry to say I’m still not well enough to teach today, so we need to cancel our session this morning.

We’ll resume next Wednesday, October 29, 10-12, same room.

Since we’re missing our session on disciplinary approaches today, I want to give you something to work on in the meantime that will help us move forward when we meet next week.

Task for October 29

Between now and next Wednesday, I want you to do two things:

1. Think about how your field (or a field that you know well or like) studies cities

Reflect on the question we would have explored today: How does your discipline approach urban spaces? What methods, concepts, or frameworks does it use? What questions does it ask? What does it help you see—and what might it miss?

You don’t need to write this up formally, just think about it. Maybe jot down some notes for yourself.

2. Write 1-2 pages before class next week

Respond to this prompt:

“Think about Berlin—neighborhoods you’ve walked through, spaces you’ve encountered. What tension, pattern, or question about what survives (or doesn’t survive) in this city catches your attention? What makes you curious? What bothers you or puzzles you?”

Don’t worry about framing it in disciplinary terms yet. Don’t worry about being profound or academic. Just write honestly about what draws your attention when you think about survival, persistence, or disappearance in this city.

Bring this writing to class on October 29. We’ll work with it together to help you identify your specific angle on our shared question: What survives in cities?

A suggestion

If you’re stuck, go for a walk this week. Go somewhere in Berlin you’ve been meaning to explore, or somewhere familiar that you can look at with fresh eyes. Notice what catches your attention (especially also if you have started reading one of the three books from the explorations course already). What makes you pause? What makes you wonder?

Sometimes the best writing comes from genuine curiosity about something you’ve actually encountered, not from trying to think of a “good academic topic.”

I apologize again for the disruption. Take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you next Wednesday (or Tuesday for the Beyond course).

Best,
Victoria

Writing Berlin: What we discussed + next week’s assignment

Dear all,

Thank you for the engaged conversation today about writing as discovery. It was fascinating to hear the different tensions you’re noticing about urban life—from questions of visibility and erasure to patterns of displacement and belonging to the persistence of certain stories over others.

What We Explored Yesterday

We started with the question of what writing actually does—not just as a way of communicating what we already know, but as a tool for discovering what we think. Writing helps us see patterns we hadn’t noticed, make connections that weren’t obvious, and find questions we didn’t know we were asking.

The central question for this course is: What survives in cities?

Each of you will investigate this question from your own perspective and background over the semester, developing a substantial piece of writing (4,000-6,000 words) that approaches the question through your particular lens, using Berlin as your case study.

You may work and write in teams. The piece of writing is open to many different formats.

The early weeks (the next 4-5 sessions) will help you find your specific angle on this shared question. Then the course opens up—we’ll meet every few weeks to share drafts, problems, and discoveries, functioning more like a research community than a traditional seminar.

For Next Week (Oct 22, Wed 10-12)

Assignment: Bring one example of how your field studies cities—or a field that you like or in which you are interested.

This could be:

  • A book chapter or article that exemplifies the discipline’s approach to urban spaces
  • A specific method or framework the field uses
  • A key concept or theory
  • Even just a way of asking questions that’s typical of the discipline

Come prepared to share it briefly (5 minutes) with the group. We’ll discuss: What does each approach try to answer? What does it reveal? What might it miss?

You don’t need to prepare a presentation—just be ready to talk about it conversationally.

Looking Ahead

Our schedule for the next few weeks:

  • Oct 22: Disciplinary approaches to cities
  • Oct 29: Identifying your specific tension
  • Nov 5: Why should anyone care? What’s at stake?
  • Nov 12: Continue development

Then we’ll meet every 2-3 weeks as you work independently on your writing.

A Reminder

If you’re thinking “I don’t know enough about Berlin yet” or “I’m not sure what my discipline would say about this”—that’s completely normal. You don’t need to know yet. That’s what the semester is for.

Keep the question with you this week: What survives in cities? Let it follow you around. Notice what it makes you pay attention to.

See you Wednesday, Victoria


P.S. If you’re having trouble finding an example from your field, or if you’re not sure what “your field” even is yet, that’s fine—just bring your uncertainty and we’ll work with it.