Homework

ENGL1010.35 / Spring 2016 / Dr. Minarich / 2 March 2016

PAPER TWO: LITERARY OR FILM ANALYSIS Thesis Statement due in class on R 10 March (2 hard copies) Rough Draft due in class on R 24 March (2 hard copies; minimum length 4 pp.) Final Draft due via email by 11:59p on F 2 April * Please attach your document file in your email. Email subject heading should read LASTNAME Paper 2 ENGL 1020-35. Also, name your document in the following fashion: LASTNAME Paper 2 ENGL 1020-35.doc (or .docx). That would look like this, for example: MINARICH Paper 2 ENGL 1020-35.doc. Be sure that your file is .doc or .docx, or I will not be able to open it!!! CRITERIA: -This essay is a 5-6 pp. literary or film analysis. -If you choose, it could also be a compare/contrast essay. It is not necessary, however, to write a compare/contrast essay. -Your paper must contain at least 6 paragraphs. -You must include, cite, and analyze 3-4 CREDIBLE OUTSIDE SECONDARY sources in addition to the primary text(s) you choose. - Your essay must contain a three-part thesis statement: observation, significance, and “so what.” If you choose the compare/contrast option, you may either a.) construct a non-compare/contrast argument within one text, b.) construct a compare/contrast argument BETWEEN TWO TEXTS, or you can c.) construct a compare/contrast argument WITHIN ONE TEXT. You MAY NOT choose to write about more than 2 texts. Your essay must be about 1 or 2 of the following texts: -Davis, “Life in the Iron Mills” -Moore, “To a Steam Roller” -Sandburg, “Smoke and Steel” -Lang, Metropolis -Tati, Mon Oncle OPTION A: Please respond to one of the prompts listed below. 1. Duplication/doubling – In this unit’s texts, some characters are doubled, some swap places to pass as each other, and some simply replace others. Additionally, some images, shapes, and other visual motifs are multiplied, repeated, and echoed in one another. What effects do any of these have upon our understanding of the individual/individuality? Of mechanical (re)production? Of originality or conformity or connection or community? 2. Human role in production/reproduction/industry – How do humans interact with machines/technology? What are the repercussions of this interaction? To what extent do humans have agency? How is it lost or gained? Alternatively, if it is, in fact, machines or objects that are imbued with agency, why is that important? How did this come to be? What are the ramifications? And what does this do to the way we understand or define agency? What environmental effects are present? 3. Race and Class — In texts like Metropolis and “Life in the Iron Mills,” we arguably see class by turns conflated with race, treated as separately from race, and put in competition with race. (Regarding “Iron Mills,” I refer to Schocket’s article.) How might you analyze the class/race dynamic in one or both of these texts? Do you find this conflation, separation, or competition problematic? Helpful? Both? Something else entirely?

4. Order/chaos – In several texts, we observe the tension between attempts at using industry to create order and a tendency for that very order to devolve into chaos. Analyze this dynamic between order and chaos: technological, emotional, political, aesthetic, etc. 5. Role of women in industry – What room, if any, is there for women in an industrial space? What roles are they allowed? Do they have any capacity to shape industry or industrial aesthetics even if they to not directly participate? 6. Industrial Aesthetics – In this unit, we have been concerned with the aesthetics of industry and representations of technology and the industrial in literature, film, and graphic art/advertisement. Concern with aesthetics denotes a concern for beauty, but an aesthetic can also be the governing or defining principles of an artist or (artistic) movement. In the text or texts of your choosing, argue for your own definition of industrial aesthetics. 7. Labor and Ethics – Some texts critique current forms of labor and their seeming lack of ethics; others argue for a new consideration of and new standards for the ethics of labor. In one or two texts, analyze the relationship that you observe being presented between labor and ethical concerns. 8. Narration – Not only have we encountered some first-person narrators in this unit, but we’ve also seen these texts take different forms: a short story with a memoir frame, poems, a silent German expressionist film—all fictional, of course. To what end to do you see the relationship between form, narration, and content working? What do these forms/narrators allow or disallow in terms of perspective, knowledge, or focus? What does this tell us about the capabilities of certain forms (or genres) or narrators? Or about authorship? Or about identity? How are communication/perception/knowledge presented via third-person narration in Metropolis via intertitles versus the first-person frame narration in “Life in the Iron Mills” or the first-person narration in “To a Steam Roller”? Are these narrators trying to obscure or to uncover information? For what purpose(s)? 9. Absence/presence – When thinking about industrial aesthetics, what is absent/not visible can be just as important as what is present/visible. Think of the flooding depths, the many automated machines, or even something more abstract, like individuality. How is presence constructed out of absence? Or is it? What are the consequences of this presence/absence binarism (or maybe dialectic)? 10. The individual/the crowd – Here, you might examine the nature of the crowd (or mob) itself, or you might look at the role of the individual within the crowd or as someone who stands apart from the crowd. How does that character either connect her/himself or differentiate her/himself? Is movement between individual and group possible? How or how not? What is at stake in that mobility or immobility? Can individual and collective identity exist simultaneously? 11. Artistic expression – Taken in any way you’d like, how is artistic or personal expression allowed/disallowed/shaped by technology? By industry? By culture? Who or what does the shaping/sets the limitations? What is at stake in these limitations or in the transgressions thereof? 12. Technology and nature – In all of the texts in this unit, despite their focus on mechanical and industrial production, there exist nonetheless moments where we become aware of nature. Is nature included or excluded—what is its place in the overall schema of the text? Is it used? Is it abused? What meaning or promise does it hold for various characters? How does it exist—or how is it allowed to exist—in relation to mechanical/technological production and reproduction? OPTION B: Working from one the following themes/big ideas, construct an argument. Again, you may choose to write your essay as compare/contrast or not.

-individuality -vision/visuality -(re)production -stereotype -knowledge/awareness/perception

-art -ethics -humor -deceit -sexuality -desire -greed -class -authority -agency -duplicity/doubling -violence -history -religion

Should you wish to write your own prompt, please clear this with me by Wednesday 9 March. Your literary analysis will also require you to use the genre of argument (WT Chapter 11). See WT Chapter 8 for help a refresher on Literary Analysis. You may use the first person if you wish, but do not do so excessively. Your essay should include 3-4 CREDIBLE OUTSIDE SECONDARY sources. One of these sources may be from our assigned supplementary readings. (You may use more than one source from assigned class readings, but only one will count toward your source total. Also, you may use additional sources if you talk to me about it ahead of time.) The sources you choose must be reliable sources, such as scholarly books; peer-reviewed journal articles; literary reviews; websites ending in .gov, .edu, or .org; and/or reliable internet news sites. Personal blogs, Wikipedia, and sites such as SparkNotes and the like do not count as reliable sources. Papers should be formatted according to MLA style—and this includes the Works Cited page; for details on formatting, citing, and/or the Works Cited page, please consult the syllabus, the Purdue OWL website, and/or WT Chapter 27. PRO TIPS:

- With a compare/contrast paper, it’s easy to fall into the trap of simply listing similarities and differences between texts. Be sure to analyze these similarities and differences in service of a larger argument.

- When in doubt, close read! This will help you to unpack quotations from both your primary and secondary sources in ways that support your claims as well as your overall argument.

- Clear, succinct topic sentences will help keep you on track and force you to think critically about the relationships

between paragraphs. They will also help build momentum as you work toward a “so what” in your conclusion.

- The most important thing is the advancement of YOUR argument. Be fair in how you characterize others’ arguments, but remember to make them work for you.

Happy Writing!