What does it mean to be human in a world that works at a scale and speed beyond human comprehension?

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Posthumanism, posthuman, technological advance and human beings, are we already cyborgs, how is it to be a human in this age

PAPER PROMPT: What does it mean to be human in a world that works at a scale and speed beyond human comprehension? Scientific and technological advancements develop at speeds to which we cannot attend. Information develops at an exponential rate. Medicine targets our brain chemistry and our longevity and from intelligent mechanical prosthetics to xenotransplants affect who we are. In such a world do we change what it means to be human? In other words, are we already posthuman? How do we fit or not in such a world?

What is the problem? (What is the issue around your text that you want to investigate?) What is your solution? How are you going to arrive at your solution?

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The little black boy by William Blake

Note well: Assignment instructions

The term “prompt” means assignment or instructions.
This is where you submit your final draft. You will not be submitting a “prompt”; you will be submitting a brief essay.
You are proposing a topic for your research essay–that research paper will be due a few weeks before the end of the semester. This assignment is not the research paper.
Topic Space: Some text that we have read or will read during the course.

Include a working bibliography–rather than a Works Cited or Reference list because you don’t actually have to cite your sources: list the most interesting poems or stories you see on the syllabus reading list. What particular text do you want to do your research essay on. I originally wanted to make everybody write about the novel that we will read about halfway through the course: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Wolff. But I decided to open your choices up to any of the texts we will study in the course.

You should have a minimum of 5 sources listed altogether. They can be different primary texts that you have glanced at or looked at more carefully. Or you may include secondary texts if you want to go ahead and start looking for secondary sources (academic articles about an author or text).

So the proposal has to have two parts in this order:

Your text: 400-500 words, proposing your topic and plan of action–the plan of action should reflect the next stage in the process, doing the annotated bibliography.
Working Bibliography — 5 Sources Minimum
How to Write Your Paragraphs: My Implied Rubric

Study the excerpt from Bergmann’s book that is attached here. Consider Bergmann’s approach to proposals in the handout, especially her two examples of student proposals: your topic is different, but you need to use the same kinds of statements and language. Bergmann Research Proposal Assignment.pdf To reiterate: Bergmann lays out the general idea for this paper on pages 77-79 of the handout. Study the language in the examples–this is what your proposal should sound like. But her examples are not in MLA format: you must use MLA. Note that personal reasons for choosing your texts are encouraged.

Grading Criteria for the Essay

You should consider these bullet points as a checklist for your essay: this is not really a rubric, but these are the criteria upon which I will be grading this paper.

The proposal needs to reflect the two requirements of the final research paper: 1) the preparation you will need to for a researched discussion of some text we are going to cover, and, 2) some description of how you think your narrowly focused inquiry will work. So how do you propose to focus your inquiry? What questions about the text do you want to answer by doing research?
For the next major assignment in the paper process you will have to do an annotated bibliography. I suggest looking at some academic articles, especially for the conceptual work you will need to do for the research paper, perhaps not to read them immediately, but to see what kinds of academic discussions are going on concerning the author or poem or story that you want to write about.
Your Working Bibliography needs to include 5 sources listed in MLA or APA style. If you cite sources in your paragraphs, make sure they are listed in the Working Bibliography. This is not an annotated bibliography. Do you know the difference?
A proposal is not like a normal essay: your audience is different, usually a professor or an expert on your topic or your superior at work. Your purpose is to propose: to get them to say yes to your idea for research (in this case on some aspect of the privacy issue) or to get them to help you get on a good track to do some research. What kin do of issue about your text do you propose to research? How have you shaped your research question and why have you shaped it that way? Why is it worth researching? What do you expect to find? How will that help you answer your research question?
Note well: in this proposal you are not doing the research or reporting on any in-depth research. Your research so far has not been focused and in-depth.
The proposal needs to make the case that your research will be worthwhile, that it will serve some good purpose.
Instead of a thesis, you begin with explaining your research question: and you develop the question by thinking more and more carefully about your text or author as you build up your working knowledge or the research on the text.
Formatting: you must use MLA–this means for both citation mechanics and for layout of the whole document.
Sentencing: your sentencing is key to the clarity of your writing and thinking. You sentencing should be absolutely free of these particular errors: fragments, comma splices, fused sentences, and mixed constructions. And if your sentences are unreadable or unclear, you will not succeed.
Final drafts should be between 400 and 700 words.
You are just trying to make the point that you have a good idea for research on one of our texts and good questions related to the idea.

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Here are Bergmann’s focus questions. You will have to make some adjustments for our literary context. You should give clear answers to them in your proposal:

What is the problem? (What is the issue around your text that you want to investigate?)
What is your solution?
How are you going to arrive at your solution?
What product(s) will be the outcome? (Sort of built into your assignments: annotated bibliography and an essay.)
When will it be finished? (By the deadlines . . . ?)
What resources will be used/needed?
But this is not really a problem/solution kind of topic. So how must you alter her focus questions to produce a good proposal in this situation?

Discuss Jamaican, Sri Lankan and American literature. Find literature related to these books and authors. These books should be post-colonial meanwhile discussing the given topic.

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Post colonial representation of gender, sexuality and queer

Select 3 post-colonial novels from the following countries; Jamaican, Sri Lankan and American literature.
Find literature related to these books and authors.
These books should be post-colonial meanwhile discussing the given topic.
Are there better ideas to improve this topic?
Can we have Jamaican poetry and two novels from the other two countries or vice versa?

Write comparison between the book The bees and Divergent for traces of socialism and to analyze that. No sources are technically needed but at max limit sources if needed to 1 or 2.

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https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/extended-essay/

Essentially an extended essay. Write comparison between the book The bees and Divergent for traces of socialism and to analyze that. No sources are technically needed but at max limit sources if needed to 1 or 2.

In an essay of 5 pages, analyze how the author, through the use of the selected characters, uses the power struggle to create the themes of the plays.

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Select a character from “Fences,” “A Doll’s House” and “Trifles” who struggle to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. You may choose characters from different genders.

In an essay of 5 pages, analyze how the author, through the use of the selected characters, uses the power struggle to create the themes of the plays.

To show that your conclusion is a valid one, quote from the plays in support of your contentions.

Consider the play “Fences,” and discuss in a 4-page essay, how its characters mirror (or are similar to) those in “The Doll House” and “Trifles.”

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Consider the play “Fences,” and discuss in a 4-page essay, how its characters mirror (or are similar to) those in “The Doll House” and “Trifles.”

What effects does your artifact have on other artifacts, industries, societies or the planet more generally (whether through its creation, usage, or eventual obsolescence)?

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Cultural Artifact Project

Prompt: Consider the meaning of an artifact of your choice as well as what it reveals about the culture(s) it is part of.

Your essay should analyze what exactly the artifact is, its impact, and what we can learn about society as a result of studying it.

Your paper must also directly contextualize your own research within the methods or approaches displayed by any two of the three “case study” texts we have read for this class (Let’s Talk About Love, Doing Cultural Studies, Consider the Lobster) In Let’s Talk About Love, the author approached as an individual that dislikes a particular person, Celine Dion by multiple ways (going to Dion’s concert in Las Vegas and interviewed with a few of Dion’s fans).

In Doing Cultural Studies, the author specifically focused on the “circuit of culture” includes “representation, consumption, production, regulation and identity”, which is a set of values that an object has to pass in order to be considered as a cultural artifact

How have you attempted to utilize their approaches to better understand your own artifact, and what benefits and pitfalls have you encountered along the way in doing so?

Specifically, your paper must address the following:

•What does it mean to study an artifact as a cultural document? Assess the methods of two case study texts we’ve read in terms of how they have shaped your own work. How has your artifact attained meaning through its production and consumption?

•How has your artifact’s meaning has been shaped or altered through a variety of social settings or contexts?

•What effects does your artifact have on other artifacts, industries, societies or the planet more generally (whether through its creation, usage, or eventual obsolescence)?

What should be the role of schools in preventing cyber bullying?

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What should be the role of schools in preventing cyber bullying?

What will the focus of your research be? Where will you look for potential sources.

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We can pick one topic out of the following:
1. Guilt – survivors and the children of survivors.

2. The Nuremberg laws (you may note similarities to Jim Crow laws).

3. The controversy surrounding the depiction of the Holocaust in MAUS, and its place in the Canon of Holocaust Literature

4. How the historical roots of oppression affect the lives of people today.

5. In Maus, morality and ethics seem fragile which brings up the question of whether there is any inherent good in human beings after all. Research ethical behavior in circumstances where survival is at stake.

6. The history of comic books in the 20th century.

7. MAUS: How the animals work as characters; how the text and graphic elements work together; Spiegelman’s process; etc.

8. The genesis of MAUS.

9. Propaganda10.Concentration Camps

This essay, your research paper, will springboard from Art Spiegleman’s MAUS, but the topic you choose will expand beyond the pages of the text.

In some cases, your introductory paragraph will explain how the topic relates to MAUS, and that will be the only mention of Spiegelman’s book.

In other cases, you will want to refer to MAUS in your body paragraphs.

Proposal requirements:
Requirements:  MLA Format 1-2 pages In a paragraph, state the topic you have chosen to write about and why this topic interests you.

What theme/s of this topic will you be exploring? ex: If choose to write about the Holocaust, pick one aspect of this tragic event that is depicted in MAUS.

What will the focus of your research be? Where will you look for potential sources.

Do you agree that ‘Vergil sought not what was nearest to the truth, but what was most appropriate, and aimed, not to teach the farmer?

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Do you agree that ‘Vergil sought not what was nearest to the truth, but what was most appropriate, and aimed, not to teach the farmer?