Cultural Resistance: NFL Protesting Argument Essay. Develop Your own claim. Eight page paper double spaced

College English WRT 105 Dr. Smyth

Date Due:

Keep track of Developmental Due Dates in Syllabus

Documented Argument Assignment

Cultural Resistance and Dissent

Both the culture we enjoy and the culture in which we live provide us with ideas of how things are and how they should be, frameworks through which to interpret reality and possibility. They help us account for the past, make sense of the present and dream of the future. Culture can be, and is, used as a means of social control. More effective than any army is a shared conception that the way things are is the way things should be. The powers-that-be don’t remain in power by convincing us that they are the answer, but rather that there is no other solution. But culture can be, and is, used as a means of resistance, a place to formulate other solutions. In order to strive for change, you have to first imagine it, and culture is the repository of imagination. ~Stephen Duncombe

It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy.

~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

In his introduction to the Cultural Resistance Reader, Stephen Duncombe reluctantly defines “cultural resistance” as “culture that is used, consciously or unconsciously, effectively or not, to resist and /or change the dominant political, economic, and/or social structure” (5). He goes on to raise questions about how cultural resistance works, whether or not it can also be thought of as political resistance, and eventually whether or not cultural resistance is even possible. We’ll spend the next segment of WRT 105 entertaining these ideas; exploring, analyzing, questioning, critiquing and arguing about how and why (and if) culture is being used to resist or challenge the dominant ideologies, policies, and practices of the contemporary American landscape. During that time we’ll grapple with difficult questions: How is culture being used to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the status quo, with the dominant American culture? What are the cultural artifacts associated with resistance and dissent? What are various countercultures, subcultures, or cultures of resistance identifying as the social, economic and political problems of the day? What are their goals (to raise awareness, to change the way we think, to affect “real” social or political change, etc.)? Are they effective? How do the critiques offered by these groups connect with larger issues being debated by the greater public? And where do you stand on the issues, on the means of resistance or dissent?

Your first task will be to identify a form of cultural resistance (or attempted cultural resistance) and its connected controversies and then to spend some time listening in on and analyzing the arguments that are embedded in the debate. Who is saying what? What positions are the various participants taking? What are the ethical and social consequences of those positions? Who wins? Who loses? What is the history of this issue? What kinds of arguments are being constructing for what kinds of audiences? What seems to influence who takes what position? What is the scale of this controversy (local, regional, national, global)? Which positions seem to have the most credible arguments? Which positions seem to have the most power? What visual images do the various participants deploy? You are going to, more or less, map out the opinions and the implications surrounding your issue.

You will use the skills of analysis that you have honed in unit 2 to arrive at research questions, which you will then explore through the various methods we have identified in class (database research, personal experience, etc). As you perform your analysis, you will again practice deferring judgment, identifying parts and how they are connected, looking for patterns, making the implicit explicit, and reformulating questions. However, unlike your analysis essay, your central purpose in the essay your write for unit 3 (Argument) will be to persuade your academic audience to adopt the position that you recommend from the position of authority you have built with your research. Your argument will be based on and will emerge from your analysis of the controversy. In your essay for this unit, you will construct an argument that positions you within the controversy. You will not simply argue for who is right and who is wrong—rather, you will argue for a particular way to understand the issue and, if appropriate, you will include a call for a certain kind of action from your audience as a way to resolve the controversy. To do this, you will select a limited number of sources (these may be written, visual, audio, video, etc.) from those you uncovered in your research. No more than three or four of these (at least two scholarly) should represent the views you wish to explore in depth, support, work against or develop in building your own argument. Others may be included if you need to reference them briefly in order to summarize the controversy or present statistics, etc. This is not a “full blown” research project.

Examples of some general topics you may want to explore could include, but are certainly not limited to: Music (protest music, gangsta rap, punk, noise, hardcore, Burning Man, mix tapes/CDs/playlists, piracy); Art (graffiti, Banksy, busking, guerilla and performance art, various art movements); Language (non-standard dialects of English, Spanglish); Alternative Media (alternative radio, zines, blogs); Alternative Education (Montessori schools, Ebonics); Use of Space (parkour, skateboarding, Reclaim the Streets, Critical Mass); Body Art (tattoos, piercing, branding); Culture Jamming and Culture Jamming Organizations (Abrupt, Subvertise, Adbusters); Resistance to National or Normative Identities (in terms of sexuality, family, race); Role playing games; Anti-war activism; Animal-rights activism; Environmental activism . . .The list goes on. . .

Again, create a good, descriptive title and follow MLA citation procedures. This paper will be graded using the WRT105 standard rubric. Required length: 8 pages