HUM 1020: Cultural Analysis
First-Draft: Tuesday, November 7th via email
Final Due:
Thursday, November 16th via Canvas
Assignment Description:
Now that you’ve developed the ability to read and interpret
texts, it’s time to apply those readings to wider bodies of
cultural knowledge. In order to do so, you will frame your
interpretation/reading of one of our class texts with a variety
of secondary sources, which you will use to connect your ideas
to existing research on a topic pertinent to your
interpretation.
To begin, pick a course work and spend some time, as before,
examining it. Think about its structure, its patterns, its
subject matter and particular way of inflecting a variety of
topics. Come up with an idea about what you want to explore and
try to come up with one or more research questions.
For example, if I wanted to develop my earlier idea about
Raphael’s depiction of Mary and Jesus as contemporary Italians,
I might ask, “Was this practice common during the Renaissance?”
or, if I wanted to frame my reading historically, I might ask,
“What were Renaissance attitudes toward class?” I might ask the
same questions about dress/costume, social customs, etc.
From there, I would research using scholarly sources.
lib.usf.edu is a good place to start. Cast your net widely and
look at a variety of things. However, part of research is
figuring out how to look. One skill to develop is the
development of search terms which you can then run through the
library’s search engines. In my project, I might search for
“social class, Renaissance” or “Renaissance clothing” or even
“Renaissance upper middle class.” It doesn’t cost you anything
to run a search, so try lots of different angles and examine a
wide variety of texts. From those, pick out a few that most
directly pertain to your topic. You’re required to have at least
three academic sources, as well as two popular sources, which
could either be non-scholarly articles or books or, better yet,
other artworks which you can use to contextualize your reading.
So, again, to use the example above, I might look at a variety
of Renaissance images of Mary to see if others paint her in such
regal garb. I can then connect my observations on The
Bridgewater Madonna to wider trends in Renaissance painting.
With your research in hand, think about how your interpretation
of the artwork sits with your research. Does your interpretation
agree with those you see in other texts? Are there are any
aspects of your take that would be helped by being
contextualized by one of your sources?
One way to think about your research is that it provides a
context for your interpretations to react to and weigh in on. So
perhaps you can think of your secondary sources as a unified
body of ways of looking at your artwork, which you will then
compare to your own takes on the text. In the best cases, you
will actually use your interpretations of the text to comment
upon or develop these existing ideas you encounter in your
secondary sources.
Assignment Guidelines
Your paper must be at least 1,000 words, not including your
name, date, paper title, etc.
You must cite at least three scholarly sources in your paper, as
well as at least two non-scholarly sources (these should be
reliable, legit publications, not Joe’s Movie Blog or something
of that ilk). You’ll be assessed large penalties if the sources
are unreliable or if you don’t meet the minimum number of
sources.
Your paper should be formatted in MLA style, from the first-page
elements to the works cited page. Here is an example of how MLA
style is supposed to look.
Papers should be well-written, and revised and polished before
submission. It’s worth noting here that even a first-draft
benefits from a once-over, even if that only amounts to a single
read-through that helps catch formatting and usage errors.
Please consult the class revision tips as well.
In the end, your paper should clearly and confidently argue your
central point, using a clear structure and specific details to
connect your interpretation to a wider field of cultural
inquiry.
Rubric:
1) Argument
30%
This score covers both the paper’s central thesis as well
as the argumentative organization.
With the thesis, what we’re looking for is a clear
statement of the general idea. This thesis should come
somewhere in the introduction and introduce the general
point you’re getting across in the paper. The general point
itself needs a compelling and essential idea about how the
work relates to some issue of larger cultural relevance
(approaches here might be philosophical, political,
historical, aesthetic, etc.). Remember that the best
arguments about artworks show us something unexpected or
original about the works, so creativity and ingenuity are
assessment criteria in addition to coherency and clarity.
Subsequent paragraphs should then be organized around
proving the thesis, with clear support from well-organized
paragraphs. The entire argument should read as a coherent
whole, and the reader shouldn’t be confused at any point
about how an individual paragraph relates to the larger
argument.
2) Analysis
30%
This score concerns the quality, complexity, creativity,
and clarity of your formal analysis, as well as the use of
secondary sources in relation to your analyses.
The key with formal analysis is to have a clear idea
derived from the specific details of the text. A good
formal analysis has a clear idea, but one that is threaded
through the artist’s way of presenting things. In this kind
of argument, the specific choices build out to larger
ideas. Body paragraphs should engage directly with specific
details from the text/image, exploring them creatively to
offer up new ways of considering the artwork.
The way to connect secondary sources to these readings is
to think carefully about how to move between ideas, how to
integrate others’ ideas into your own. It’s important to
avoid simply summarizing the secondary sources. Instead,
point your use of them toward your purposes, your argument.
3) Presentation
20%
This score covers the prose’s quality, formatting, and the
presentation of your paper.
Because all writers enter the course with different writing
backgrounds, it’s impossible to offer clear and hard-fast
rules regarding the quality of prose. Do, however, check
the revision tips list. This score is lowered with each
infraction of those issues on the list, so please do due
diligence and revise your prose according to those
comments. My basic strategy regarding prose quality is to
set goals on the first paper and then to grade on whether
the second paper meets the goals identified in the first.
As noted above, papers should be formatted in MLA style.
This covers the formatting of name, course information,
date, paper title, page numbers, etc.
4) Research
20%
This score concerns the quality of your sources, their
integration in the paper, and the accuracy of your
citations.
As stated above, you need at least three scholarly sources
and at least two non-scholarly sources. Additionally, you
need to think about how to integrate quotations and
paraphrases from those sources into the body of your paper.
Finally, make sure you’re using the right citation style.
Don’t use auto-generators, as they make a plethora of
mistakes that will cost you points!
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