[Header image by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya.]
Week 7 - due by 5pm on Friday 10/15, uploaded to section Canvas
This week, I am asking you to use your freshly developed intersectional lens to analyze a specific text in popular culture. This assignment includes two steps:
1) Pick a pop cultural text that you think is ripe for good analysis. Please understand I am using "text" in the broadest possible way. You can pick a novel, film, tv show, music video, piece of art, YouTube video, TikTok performance, Twitter hashtag, comic book, or other item. If you are picking something fairly long or large – like a film or comic book – I suggest you think about how you might instead choose just part of that item. Could you analyze a single scene instead of the whole film? Could you pick one chapter that allows you to conduct your analysis?
No matter what item you pick, think about something that is ripe for analysis but also not so big as to be impossible to apprehend in a short writing assignment. You are welcome to talk with me or your GSI if you're having a hard time thinking of a text to analyze.
2) Read, watch, or otherwise consume the text you have chosen, while keeping your mind open for analytical possibilities. With your new or renewed sense of intersectional gender politics, what in this text jumps out at you? Here are some motivating questions, but do not feel like you must answer them all:
How is gender represented?
How does gender intersect with other important or relevant identities?
Which identities are highlighted in this text?
Is the text trying to make any claims?
Does the text take anything for granted as fundamental assumptions? Do you agree with those assumptions?
How is power represented?
How is difference represented?
What, if anything, is represented as natural or normal?
Does the text have implicit and explicit messages? How are they conveyed?
Does the text have a particular audience in mind? Why would it be directed at that audience? What happens if it is consumed by a different audience?
What impact do you think this text would have on its audience? How is that impact created or prompted?
Is the text trying to be "empowering"? If so, does it work? Can you challenge the creator's definition of empowerment?
Use these questions as they might be helpful to catalyze your analysis. Please make your answer at least 600 words. If possible, include a link to the text you're analyzing, but be sure to describe the elements or details that are central to your analysis.
Week 7 - due by 5pm on Friday 10/15, uploaded to section Canvas
This week, I am asking you to use your freshly developed intersectional lens to analyze a specific text in popular culture. This assignment includes two steps:
1) Pick a pop cultural text that you think is ripe for good analysis. Please understand I am using "text" in the broadest possible way. You can pick a novel, film, tv show, music video, piece of art, YouTube video, TikTok performance, Twitter hashtag, comic book, or other item. If you are picking something fairly long or large – like a film or comic book – I suggest you think about how you might instead choose just part of that item. Could you analyze a single scene instead of the whole film? Could you pick one chapter that allows you to conduct your analysis?
No matter what item you pick, think about something that is ripe for analysis but also not so big as to be impossible to apprehend in a short writing assignment. You are welcome to talk with me or your GSI if you're having a hard time thinking of a text to analyze.
2) Read, watch, or otherwise consume the text you have chosen, while keeping your mind open for analytical possibilities. With your new or renewed sense of intersectional gender politics, what in this text jumps out at you? Here are some motivating questions, but do not feel like you must answer them all:
How is gender represented?
How does gender intersect with other important or relevant identities?
Which identities are highlighted in this text?
Is the text trying to make any claims?
Does the text take anything for granted as fundamental assumptions? Do you agree with those assumptions?
How is power represented?
How is difference represented?
What, if anything, is represented as natural or normal?
Does the text have implicit and explicit messages? How are they conveyed?
Does the text have a particular audience in mind? Why would it be directed at that audience? What happens if it is consumed by a different audience?
What impact do you think this text would have on its audience? How is that impact created or prompted?
Is the text trying to be "empowering"? If so, does it work? Can you challenge the creator's definition of empowerment?
Use these questions as they might be helpful to catalyze your analysis. Please make your answer at least 600 words. If possible, include a link to the text you're analyzing, but be sure to describe the elements or details that are central to your analysis.