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[Tokyo Sonata]

Papers

In this course, I ask you to write three papers: two shorter (2000 - 2500 words) and a longer final paper (3000 - 3500 words).

Rather than giving you specific topics for these papers, I ask you to build papers around questions you think are interesting. Your paper should be directly linked with our course materials (readings and films) or discussions, and is not a research paper. By this I mean that you should not need to do any extra research to produce this paper, but think and write about something that relates to our course materials. If you’re having trouble figuring out what you might want to write about, I suggest you think about things that have struck you as particularly surprising. Surprise can be a great place to start analysis because it enables you to reflect on your expectations and how they might not have been correct. You can also look back over all the discussion questions you and your colleagues have created throughout the semester. Do any jump out at you as great questions worthy of a longer answer? I am always happy to talk through possible paper topics and I recommend you make an appointment earlier rather than waiting until the last minute.

Please know that I am quite aware that figuring out your own paper topic -- as opposed to just having one assigned to you -- takes a lot of work. That’s one of the reasons why I designed assignments to give your an opportunity to show me all the thinking and work you’ve done.

All papers should be uploaded to Canvas / Assignments.