Lecture: "The Foot, The Pen, The Naïve Question"

Monday, March 16, 2026
5:15pm - 7:oopm
Thomson Hall (Room 202), Richardson Memorial Hall
Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118

This lecture is open to the public.

"The Foot, The Pen, The Naïve Question" is an invited lecture by Garnette Cadogan, Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism, MIT School of Architecture and Planning; Writer and Editor-at-Large of Non-Stop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. It is part of the Spring 2026 Lecture Series and Public Programs: "Common Good."

This lecture is supported by the Mary W. and Arthur Q. Davis Lectureship.

LECTURE TOPIC

Reflecting on the twentieth century’s veer from overconfidence to disillusionment, as it piled up untold horrors along the way, Wislawa Szymbroska offered: “The most pressing questions/are naïve ones.” As we wrestle with the complex issues and wicked problems of this century, Szymborska’s wisdom is our charge. A return to the naïve questions through ways of knowing—walking, writing, teaching—that demand close attention and invites us to consider a wide range of responsibilities and possibilities is the task taken up by this lecture. The hand making strokes across the page; the feet making footfalls on the pavement; the active discourse of voices in thoughtful back-and-forth—these constitute an intertwined practice that’s employed to discover, analyze, and interrogate the aesthetic, social, cultural, and political meanings of place.
This lecture asks what new maps might we sketch with our feet onto our memory and imaginations, and pulls back the curtain on the practice of one urbanist whose fundamental description of how he understands the world is “I walk, I write, I teach.”

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Garnette Cadogan is the Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism at the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. His research explores the promise and perils of urban life, the vitality and inequality of cities, and the beauty and challenges of the public realm. The editor-at-large of Non-Stop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (co-edited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro) and co-editor (with Elijah Wald) of selected writings of New Orleanian Robert McKinney, he’s at work on a book on walking.

Questions? Please reach out to Ben Neal at bneal1@tulane.edu.