Partition complexes, Tits buildings and symmetric products
                             by
                 G. Z. Arone and W. G. Dwyer


  We construct a homological approximation to the partition complex,
  and identify it as the Tits building. This gives a homological
  relationship between the symmetric group and the affine group, leads
  to a geometric tie between symmetric powers of spheres and the
  Steinberg idempotent, and allows us to use the self-duality of the
  Steinberg module to study layers in the Goodwillie tower of the
  identity functor.