Anthropology

Assignment 1: 5-page paper

 

Option 1:Use Aimee Cox’s Book Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship to analyze two “artivist” images of your choice from the collaborative project “@Ferguson: Still here in the afterlives of Black death, defiance, and joy,” published in the journal American Ethnologist.

 

View/read these sources carefully. You do not need to read the entire @Ferguson project! Please skim the Introductory essay to the collection by Parikh and Kwon (you can cite to it in your paper, if you wish, but there is no requirement to do so): that should get you oriented to the @Ferguson project, to the ongoing significance of Michael Brown’s killing by police officer Darren Wilson, and to the activism/artivism, Black defiance and joy, and cultural production that grew in Ferguson after Michael Brown’s killing. Then pick 2 of the featured images from the project to analyze. You do not need to have any experience with analyzing images: your goal is to use key ideas from Shapeshifters to make an argument, supported by evidence, about the images.

 

Your engagement with Cox should involve more than a cursory citation or two (please include meaningful quotations); citing for unimportant ethnographic detail is insufficient. Except in cases where you do not have the cultural background to understand the linked sources, do not consult any sources for this paper other than the URL(s) included in this prompt, course readings/media, and lecture notes—your grade will suffer if you do.

 

• Select two images. These should be chosen from among the images of artivism (artist-activism) featured in the @Ferguson, not from images that are used in text-based articles. (Look for images in between the text-based articles, and the image should be accompanied by a profile of the artist – you can use any two of those featured images.)
• Select a thematic focus for your paper. The paper length is so short that you will need to select only one major theme to pursue.
• Possible themes and/or key concepts might include—but are not limited to—cultural production, shapeshifting, social citizenship, gender, structure, flipping the script, choreography, space and the city. You are also welcome to use concepts that bridged Cox and Prof. Cattelino’slectures (e.g., the life course, social categories, social construction of gender & race, intersectionality, structure & agency, social organization, power in everyday life, essentialism, the various theories of culture, etc.). Just make sure that you are drawing from Cox as you use these ideas.
• Develop an argument. “Argument” in social scientific writing usually does not mean saying that something is good or bad (see Lecture 8.4). Instead, it simply means that you are taking a position and then presenting evidence to support it. Develop that argument, which should be stated in bold font in the first paragraph, using concepts from the course and evidence from the two images.

 

Your analysis will be evaluated for reading/listening comprehension, clear and reasonable thesis, development of argument/theme, ability to analyze data using concepts from course readings, clarity and style, and fulfillment of the assignment’s requirements (formatting, etc.).

 

You do not need to create a bibliography. Instead, indicate citations parenthetically, e.g. (Cox: 124). Cite theimages by artist’s name, image title, and page number – e.g., (Binti, Aziza: Sunshine, Lemons, and Love, p. 193).

 

Remember: we are not asking you to write like an art critic. Instead, we are asking you to analyze and make an argument about two images by using tools from this course.

 

Option 2: Use at least two readings from this course (selected from Weiner, Geertz, Govindrajan, Garth, and Cox) and the media linked below to analyze commencement as a rite of passage.

 

• Watch theseclips of highlights from the 2018 and 2016 commencement
• Read this Los Angeles Times article about the 2020 virtual graduation.

 

Analyze the ritual—the rite of passage— commencement as you understand it through the linked sources alone. Your paper should include a clear and developed argument, as well as evidence from these linked sources to support your argument.You must use at least two readings from the course to assist with your analysis, and you may also employ concepts from lectures.

 

Your engagement with the course readings should be more than a cursory citation or two (include meaningful quotations). Citing for unimportant ethnographic detail is insufficient. Do not consult any sources for this paper other than the URL(s) included in this prompt, course readings/media, and lecture notes—you will be penalized if you do.

 

• Select a thematic focus for your paper. The paper length is so short that you will need to select only one major theme to pursue.
• Themes and/or key concepts might include (but are not limited to): stages of the rite of passage, characteristics of ritual, dramatization, status, stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, communitas, social organization, youth/life cycle, and any of the various theories of culture.
• Develop an argument. “Argument” in social scientific writing usually does not mean saying that something is good or bad (see Lecture 8.4). Instead, it simply means that you are taking a position and then presenting evidence to support it. Develop that argument, which should be stated in bold font in the first paragraph, using concepts from the course and evidence from the two video clips and the newspaper article.

 

Your analysis will be evaluated for reading/listening comprehension, clear and reasonable thesis, development of argument/theme, ability to analyze data using concepts from course readings, clarity and style, and fulfillment of the assignment’s requirements (formatting, etc.).

 

You should assume that the reader is familiar with the basics of higher education。 You do not need to create a bibliography. Instead, indicate citations parenthetically, e.g. (Geertz: 26). Cite to the linked sources as (Highlights 2016), (Highlights 2018), and (Himmelsbach-Weinstein and Agrawal).

 

 

Assignment format:

 

 

Papers should be 5 pages (not including any cover page), double-spaced, using 12-point font (Times New Roman or an equivalent in size), with 1” margins. Give your paper a title, which should be written at the top of the first page of the 5-page text.  Paginate the document. Graders will stop reading at the bottom of the fifth page of text.

 

Thanks!