Longer Assignments
In addition to your in-class assignments, there are three major graded assignments for this class: These assignments, described below, are:
In addition to your in-class assignments, there are three major graded assignments for this class: These assignments, described below, are:
- Paper 1: "Story that Thinks" Assignment
- Paper 2: Researcher Profile Assignment
- Paper 3: Local to Global Assignment
Paper 1: "Story that Thinks" Assignment
For Paper 1, you are to craft a "story that thinks" by applying cultural studies thinking to any piece of observational writing you've created prior arriving at NYU. The process for this is as follows: in classroom exercises, you'll work to isolate the questions, responses, arguments and metaphors at the heart of your first piece. In your paper proposal, you'll introduce new questions that critically extend, complicate, or rework the responses, arguments and/or metaphors your original narrative. These questions should engage with at least two keywords in cultural studies we've studied to date:
Work should be saved to your Paper 1 channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_PAPER 1
- time
- space
- market
- subject position
Work should be saved to your Paper 1 channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_PAPER 1
Paper 2: Researcher Profile Assignment
For this essay (word count: 2000-2500), you are asked to present yourself as a person, a global scholar, and a researcher. Although all the elements below are necessary for a strong grade, the order in which you present them is up to you, as is the manner in which you present them. You can feel free to include images, adjust page layouts, put this document online, embed video, or alter as feels right for you. Bibliography is not included in word count, but is required.
Elements of a Researcher Profile
1. A brief synopsis of two case studies that gives your reader a sense of the kinds of things you find interesting as a researcher.
2. Very brief context for why you are drawn as a person and scholar to each case. Do the cases touch on something about your background? Do they connect to class material you covered, a documentary you watched, a rally you went to elsewhere?
3. A brief discussion about these cases are alike, and how they differ, using a cultural studies point of view. Here, you might draw on ideas from earlier reading about time, space, subject position, and/or markets.
4. A brief discussion where you “fan out” these case studies, connecting them to other examples or dynamics going on around the world
5. A brief discussion of at least three concepts from global studies that might be applicable to these dynamics.
6. A discussion of some macro-level (introductory) chapter titles you’ve been looking at to better understand this vocabulary.
7. A discussion of any other types of research paths that interest you that you haven’t touched on thus far in your document.
8. A brief preliminary discussion of which GLS concentrations interest you, and why.
9. A very short discussion of your plan for your final paper, which will require you:
- Detail a first-person account witnessing an event (or phenomenon, display, or dynamic) in NYC, or any other urban center around the world.
- Take a cultural studies approach to your witnessing. To do this, consider how differing notions of time, space, subjects or markets change what things “are” and what they “mean”--for those involved, those currently studying it, and those studying it in the future.
- Take a global studies approach to your witnessing. To do this, turn to key terms in global studies that help you consider how your local observations tie to worldwide trends such as the various “scapes” detailed by Appadurai.
- Raise and address a question that links your personal witnessing to writing in global studies regarding flows of people, objects, technology, capital, media, language, faith, laws, labor, production, or any other topics of relevance.
Work should be saved to your Paper 2 channel in Slack, in MS Word format, with title : YOURLASTNAME_PAPER2
Paper 3: Local to Global Assignment
For this assignment, you are to deliver a document that contains a
- Detail a first-person account witnessing an event (or phenomenon, display, or dynamic) in NYC, or any other urban center around the world.
- Take a cultural studies approach to your witnessing. To do this, consider how differing notions of time, space, subjects or markets change what things “are” and what they “mean”--for those involved, those currently studying it, and those studying it in the future.
- Take a global studies approach to your witnessing. To do this, turn to key terms in global studies that help you consider how your local observations tie to worldwide trends such as the various “scapes” detailed by Appadurai.
- Raise and address a question that links your personal witnessing to writing in global studies regarding flows of people, objects, technology, capital, media, language, faith, laws, labor, production, or any other topics of relevance.