Students Imagine Urban Futures and Possibilities with Handmade Books

Students Imagine Urban Futures and Possibilities with Handmade Books

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May 01, 2026
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a student illustrates a page for their GEOG 25 book project

Thinking Critically About the Relationship Between Form and Content

Beginning in fall term 2022, Erin Collins, Assistant Professor of Geography, partnered with Sarah Marcella Parella, Dartmouth Libraries Book Arts Workshop Program Manager, for Collins’ class GEOG 25: Social Justice and the City. Collins wanted to add a hands-on, interactive, and creative learning element to the students’ experience. This first collaboration was a single class session in the Book Arts Workshop. Based on their readings, students created and decorated paper houses and buildings about Oakland, California neighborhoods. What resulted from the students’ brief hands-on engagement inspired Collins and Parella to expand the project.

students in GEOG 25 make handmade books in Book Arts Workshop

GEOG 25 Social Justice and the City students work on their handmade books in the Book Arts Workshop

Parella shares her reflections on the growth from a single-session exercise to a fully embedded course-wide output. “During our first collaboration, I found the students’ impassioned conversation after their hands-on activity rewarding. Then the rich and deep engagement the students had with their research in the expanded bookmaking project has become a real highlight of my time here at Dartmouth!”

Collaborating with the Book Arts Workshop has transformed every aspect of my class, Social Justice and the City. Through art creation as scholarly practice, students come​ to imagine other urban futures and possibilities.

Erin Collins, Assistant Professor of Geography

Together, they designed a course in which students create a book about their chosen city across the entire term rather than just during a single session. “Through making handmade books about social justice and injustice in the city of their choosing, students become connected to course content in a way that is simultaneously academic, political, and personal,” says Collins. The handmade books the students create are an ongoing response to what they are learning.

On March 9, students, faculty, and special guests packed the Libraries’ Treasure Room for a special event where the winter term class presented their (nearly) final book projects, captured in this video by Josie Harrison '25, Jones Memorial Digital Media Fellow.

Surrounded by 100-year-old stained glass designs symbolizing Dartmouth’s legacy, each student spoke about their chosen city, what they learned in the course, and how they designed their book to match that learning. For Parella, these presentations are a highlight of the term, as she gets to witness the students proudly discussing their book concepts “in a way that I rarely hear when it’s a written paper or a standard presentation.”

While there was cohesion in the varying research they shared, particularly when noting the adverse impacts of “redlining” in US cities, each student made unique books that reflected their learning journey. Their clever book designs, image- and text-making techniques, as well as some paper engineering (or pop-ups), showed their concepts visually rather than telling them in lengthy text blocks. Their approaches invite the viewer to engage with information in unique ways.  

students books on display for GEOG 25 class

Students share their handmade books during their final GEOG 25 Social Justice and the City presentation

pop up page of student book featuring a mouth and word gentrification

Inner page from book made by Ajayda Griffith '27

As examples, one student presented their city, Brooklyn, and spoke about how gentrification “swallowed whole neighborhoods.” In it, a large, paper-engineered mouth popped up to signify that point. Another used a Python script to create visualizations of city-specific data. Each dot represented a real person and a real house, pinpointing examples of injustices in specific LA neighborhoods. 

Through making handmade books about social justice and injustice in the city of their choosing, students become connected to course content in a way that is simultaneously academic, political, and personal.

Erin Collins, Assistant Professor of Geography
centerfold of Idaly Barajas '28 handmade book for GEOG 25

Centerfold of Idaly Barajas '28 handmade book about Houston, Texas

Idaly Barajas ‘28 presented on her hometown, Houston, Texas. Her work asks, “Who belongs?” She explained how Houston “is a diverse city, but people live in enclaves and pockets.” As she spoke, she opened a page spread with an intricate pop-up paper highway, depicting how the Houston freeway divides communities and cuts through neighborhoods. In her research, she discovered old neighborhoods that she “didn't even know about, even though it’s my own city.” Reflecting on the project, Barajas shared, “By producing a book, I became physically invested in learning from and about fellow Houstonians; their stories can now also circulate through this eye-catching medium.”

I believe that out of all the final projects I have completed for all my classes—essays, slideshows, oral presentations—this book is the one that I will flaunt the most.

Colby Soutter '28
Inside handmade book for GEOG 25 by Colby Soutter '28

Inside handmade book for GEOG 25 by Colby Soutter '28 

In his feedback, Colby Soutter ’28 shared what he learned more broadly in the class, from why making a book as a final project has a unique research impact to announcing, “For once, a class asked me to make something real.” 

Soutter shares,

"I understand why our final project is a book—an artistic, imaginative, aesthetically appealing, handmade book—as opposed to a classic paper or presentation in which we might be able to fit more information. I thought about this a lot while in the Book Arts Workshop, cutting up sheets of paper into different shapes, working slowly at a typewriter, and gluing down notes and images together until I had my finished pages. 

I think that this book project was the perfect assignment to wrap up this course, because it brought us face-to-face with what I now believe is one of the most critical steps in not just recognizing but fixing social justice issues: gaining traction. In today’s oversaturated media environment, where reels are short and attention spans are shorter, it is harder than ever to attract a lasting audience.

pages from handmade book in GEOG 25 by Colby Soutter '28

Sample pages from Colby Soutter '28s handmade book for GEOG 25

The final book project led me to create a vessel for education that is less imposing and more likely to be consumed with meaningful effect. I had to be more thoughtful and intentional about what I wanted to communicate as a result, and I was conscious to try and design a progression of pages that—whenever possible—show before telling. 

I am very proud of what I made, and I am very grateful for this class to have subverted my expectation for what a college final usually looks like and given me the opportunity to do work that I would not usually do. I believe that out of all the final projects I have completed, for all my classes—essays, slideshows, oral presentations—this book is the one that I will flaunt the most."

Through this course, we’re helping students learn that they can be creative and problem-solving in a way they didn’t expect, and that sets them apart after they graduate.

Sarah Marcella Parella, Book Arts Workshop Program Manager

With a new group of students undertaking this class for spring term, Parella reflects on how much she loves “bringing students beyond their initial apprehension with a creative project to a place where they are proud of their work and excited to show it off.” The winter term students' handmade books will be on display in the Treasure Room Hallway. For now, preview a sampling of books to discover for yourself just what Soutter means in the exhibit case next to the Book Arts Workshop.

Plan Your Visit to Baker Library

The creative and experiential components of this class are made possible by generous funding and support from the Ethics Institute, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, and the Department of Geography.  

Additionally, the GEO25: Social Justice and the City course couldn't be possible without the incredible arts and humanities resources at Dartmouth and across the region. Collins thanks Amelia Kahl, from whom the students study and learn with pieces of art that incorporate maps, urban space, and power at the Hood Museum's Bernstein Center for Object Study. Thanks also goes to Morgan Swan, who shared his expertise with the students during a visit to Rauner Special Collections Library to engage with early surveying notebooks and representations of space created by the Thayer Surveying class of 1872. Dan Nott from the Center for Cartoon Studies also contributed his expertise in an inspiring guest lecture and graphic comic workshop. Lastly, this spring term '26, students watched the music-theater work, Reconstructing, created and performed by the TEAM at the Hopkins Center for Performing Arts.

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