Narrative

Jennifer Kotting was born in Cumberland, Maryland, a dying industrial town with brick streets and empty store windows in the Appalachian foothills. She graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County magna cum laude with a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and B.A. in English Literature, focusing largely on linguistics, comparative mythology, and cultural landscapes.

Directly following, she was admitted to the Masters of Landscape Architecture program at Cornell University during which time she aided in graphic design for The People’s Plan for the lower Ninth Ward district of New Orleans, performed studio projects in Toronto, Ontario and Puebla, Mexico, and took a semester in absentia to write her Master’s Thesis, “Abandonment and Rehabitation: Transforming the Postindustrial Landscape,” while riding the train across Canada and the U.S.

After emerging with her degree, she resubmerged into further academic studies, beginning her PhD in Geography at the University of Minnesota which, incidentally, was the alma mater of her grandfather from Hibbing, Minnesota, an old (and cold) mining town with a strong Italian community.

Jenni is currently working on topics in urban geography, racial political formation, and underground economies, and has a special interest in sound design and ethnography.