Participation (15%)
Active participation is crucial to your success and learning in this course. This means coming to class ready to participate, having completed ALL the readings and any assignments. Asking questions and contributing to classroom discussions is paramount, and will be reflected in your participation grade. Any pop quizzes and in-class activities will also be included in your participation grade and cannot be made up. I will take attendance at the beginning of class; if you are not present when I call your name, you will be marked absent. Leaving early counts as an absence. I allow 2 absences before your grade is affected, and these 2 absences cover illnesses, crises, etc.—I do not differentiate between excused and unexcused absences (this absence policy also applies to adding the course late). The only exception to this is catastrophic, documented illness (let me know ASAP if this is the case). You are responsible for all material covered in class, whether you were present or not.
Response Blog (12 entries at 5% each = 60% of course grade)
At the end of each course unit you will post to the public course blog (bodiesinvisualculture.blogspot.com) a 600-word blog entry in response to the week’s course readings and cultural productions (a prompt will be provided). In these blog posts, you will also hyperlink images, websites, and videos that relate to the week’s materials. You should not merely summarize the readings or cultural productions, but rather offer a critical engagement with both through your analysis (ask the media/text questions, note its limitations, speculate how it might be useful). These responses are a place to work through the difficult concepts this course will cover, and I encourage close readings of how authors and cultural productions make their arguments as well as what those arguments are. In addition to your weekly blog post, you will also respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates’ posts. These 75-word responses must be substantive responses in which you raise questions of or critically engage with your peers’ posts (“that’s awesome!” doesn’t count).
Research Proposal and Bibliography (5%)
This assignment will outline the topic you intend to research and write on for your Research Paper. The Research Proposal should be a 1-page description of the topic you will analyze, the main questions that will guide your research, and ideas you hope to eventually formulate into an original argument and analysis along. The Bibliography should list 5-6 scholarly sources (books, articles from scholarly journals, or book chapters) that you have consulted and plan to incorporate into your Research Paper. At least 3 of these sources must come from outside research, and at least 2 of these sources must come from the course readings. I do not expect you to have an argument/thesis already formed when you turn in this assignment. This assignment is intended to help you narrow your ideas into a topic that one can reasonably research and construct an argument about in the time frame and page limit you have for the Research Paper.
Research Paper (20%)
The Research Paper (7-8 pages) will draw together several of the themes addressed in the course into an original argument. The topic for the Research Paper is open, and I encourage you to link topics covered in the class to visual cultures you are interested in (this paper is a great way to start thinking about a senior thesis project or another type of research project). The Research Paper will contain an original argument/thesis, textual evidence, and thorough analysis and exposition that link your evidence to your argument. You must read, cite, and integrate a minimum of 5 peer-reviewed scholarly sources in this paper: 2 sources from the course readings and 3 sources that you find through library research.
